UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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The Menpes Children

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1909.117)
Number: 300
Date: 1887
Medium: etching
Size: 68 x 101 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: M. Menpes, 'Whistler as I Knew Him', London, 1904
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 12
Catalogues: K.261; M.257; W.212
Impressions taken from this plate  (12)

TECHNIQUE

It was drawn with expressive, broken outlines, and is etched, with no drypoint.

PRINTING

Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) stated that 'One of the two proofs printed in the artist's lifetime is in the Mansfield Collection' (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #K2610108). 7 The other is probably Graphic with a link to impression #K2610102. They are both printed in dark brown ink on cream laid paper with a partial watermark involving a ravening lion, or, in heraldic terms, a lion rampant.

7: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 257).

One impression on cream 'modern' (post-1800) laid paper was definitely trimmed to the platemark and signed on the tab with a butterfly that could date from about 1887 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2610103). An impression on ivory laid paper, not trimmed or signed, may be an early impression (Graphic with a link to impression #K2610107). Another is in dark brown ink on cream 'antique' laid paper, and was trimmed to the platemark, leaving a tab and a squashed butterfly signature, but was neither trimmed nor signed by Whistler (Graphic with a link to impression #K2610106).
The etching was published after Whistler's death in a limited edition of 500 impressions, in the book written and signed by Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938). 8 A selection of these, which have been removed from the volume, is included here.