UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Bead Stringers

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(46837)
Number: 235
Date: 1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 229 x 154 mm
Signed: butterfly at left (8-final)
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Second Venice Set', 1886
No. of States: 11
Known impressions: 40
Catalogues: K.198; M.195; W.164
Impressions taken from this plate  (40)

STATE

Eleven states are known before cancellation, which occurred in two stages.

State 1

Impression: K1980101
The figures in the centre and right side of the doorway are well-developed, but the seated woman at left is incomplete.

State 2

Impression: K1980201
Regular vertical and diagonal shading is added above and on the framework of the door's fanlight; a number of longer diagonal lines are added to the shading at the upper right corner of the open doorway; a series of left to right diagonals (\\\) is added to left of the knee of the woman seated in the centre.

State 3

Impression: K1980301
The torso and skirt of the woman at left are further removed, but the remnant of a basket on her lap has been changed to another indistinct object; two long, curving and slightly diagonal lines extend from the head of the seated woman at left to the stool, and they are crossed by many right to left diagonals (///) at the top; there are curved scratches on either side of the doorway.
The diagonal lines over the faint remains of the seated woman at left may represent an early cancellation of the plate, before Whistler decided to revise the composition.

State 4

Impression: K1980402
The remnants of a seated woman at left are almost completely removed and are replaced by a new seated figure; the head, torso and arm of the seated woman at right are removed and replaced by the upper body of a smaller woman, and in addition the hem of her skirt is redrawn and the shading on the door frame behind her is removed; there is new shading throughout the image, most notably on the framework around the fanlight, above the shuttered window in the background, and on the space between the knees of the seated women at centre and right and the new seated woman at left; there are new lines on the wall above and on either side of the top of the door; the curved scratches on either side of the doorway are removed.

State 5

Impression: K1980503
A patch of left to right diagonal lines (\\\) is added between the right side of the shuttered window and the head of the seated woman at right, and there is a patch of horizontal lines just above the woman's head.

State 6

Impression: K1980602
Horizontal lines are added to the shading to left of the raised hand of the woman in the centre; right to left diagonal lines (///) are added to the area between the lower right corner of the shuttered window and the head of the woman at right.
Published in this and later states by Messrs Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau with the Twenty-six Etchings (the 'Second Venice Set') in 1886.

State 7

Impression: K1980603
The head, torso, arm and hemline of the woman at right are changed again, and there is a dark, curving patch of shading below her knees; the bottom of the skirt of the woman at left is more complete, her feet are partly drawn, the back legs of her chair are faintly outlined and there are a few short slightly diagonal lines of shading below the chair seat; dark shading is added to the right side of the shuttered window frame and on both sides of the head of the woman in the centre; several small spots of foul biting appear on the left side of the image.

State 8

Impression: K1980702
Signed with a butterfly at left, next to the door frame.
More tiny spots of foul biting appear at left, mostly near the edge of the image.

State 9

Impression: K1980703
Left to right diagonal shading (\\\) is added on the left shoulder and the bodice of the woman in the centre.

State 10

Impression: K1980804
Left to right diagonals shade the left side of the square space at the centre of the fanlight; right to left diagonal shading is added across both shoulders of the woman at centre; a band of regular diagonals runs from the baby's chin to his feet; there is a patch of dark shading just above the head of the woman seated on the right, and dark shading is added to the front and back of her hair, changing its style.

State 11

Impression: K1980802
A second, small patch of shading is added below the raised hand of the woman at centre; there is a shadow behind the neck of the woman on the right; fine shading is added between the baby's head and the middle of the right side of the shuttered window frame.

State 11 (cancelled a)

Impression: K1980902
Cancelled with five short diagonal lines.

State 11 (cancelled b)

Impression: K1980903
Further cancelled with crossed diagonal lines.