UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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The Little Velvet Dress

Impression: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
(1943.3.8465)
Number: 119
Date: 1873
Medium: drypoint
Size: 166 x 122 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 27
Catalogues: K.106; M.106; W.92
Impressions taken from this plate  (27)

TECHNIQUE

A vivid drypoint.

PRINTING

One impression, inscribed '1st' by Whistler, is in black ink on ivory Japanese paper, printed with a soft burr (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060102). Several impressions of the second (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060001) and third (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060202, Graphic with a link to impression #K1060204) state are in black ink on laid paper with a Foolscap watermark and were presumably printed in close succession. Other final states are on off-white wove (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060203) and cream laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060206).

It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879, probably in an edition of about 20. Cancelled impressions are on various papers including laid paper with the Strasbourg Lily watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060302, Graphic with a link to impression #K1060304) and ivory laid Van Gelder paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K1060310, Graphic with a link to impression #K1060303).