UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Chelsea

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1889.22)
Number: 181
Date: 1878/1879
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 133 x 207 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: Printseller's Association, 1879.
No. of States: 5
Known impressions: 66
Catalogues: K.182; M.179; W.148
Impressions taken from this plate  (66)

TECHNIQUE

Chelsea was originally done in pure etching, and drypoint additions were made from the third state on.

PRINTING

Mansfield stated that Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) had written '1st State - only two taken.', and 'Second trial from the plate.' on impressions that were bought later by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), and had also written on the last print in the sequence, '"Third trial printed by artist and impression set off," and "3rd state, set off while wet." ' 7 These inscriptions seem to have been mostly removed although the latter is partly visible on an impression of the third state (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820302).

7: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 179).

One of the first impressions was in black ink on laid paper with an 'IV' countermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820102), as was the impression of the third state just mentioned (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820302), which was on paper taken from a book with an old Dutch inscription. Papers include sheets of off-white laid paper removed from a book, with sewing holes visible, used for proofs of the first and second state (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820103, Graphic with a link to impression #K1820202).
Two impressions of the fifth state are on ivory laid paper from a ledger with ruled orangey-red lines (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820212, Graphic with a link to impression #K1820215). Others - stamped by the Printsellers Association - are on similar lined paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820203, Graphic with a link to impression #K1820209). A variety of other papers used for the fifth state include other laid papers, cream (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820402), 'antique' (pre-1800) cream (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820220) and an off-white laid with eagle watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820403); ivory 'antique' laid paper darkened to cream (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820207); and dark cream laid with the watermark of 'GR' and Strasbourg Lily (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820221). One impression in dark brown ink was printed on a stiff, card-like cream wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820215).
Late impressions, as published in Choice Examples of Modern Etchings, E. Parsons, London, 1889, were on cream wove Japanned or Asian paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820210, Graphic with a link to impression #K1820211, and probably Graphic with a link to impression #K1820223 and Graphic with a link to impression #K1820z06).
Cancelled impression are also in black ink, printed on thick cream wove, possibly simile Japan (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820501) and buff wove (Graphic with a link to impression #K1820502).