UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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The Fur Tippet: Miss Lenoir

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(46952)
Number: 365
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 100 x 69 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 6
Catalogues: K.334; M.330
Impressions taken from this plate  (6)

PUBLICATION

The Fur Tippet: Miss Lenoir was not published.

EXHIBITIONS

Both Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340102) and Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent impressions to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900. 12 Impressions were also exhibited by the print dealers H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898 and 1903. 13

Another impression was included in the comprehensive Grolier Club exhibition of 1904, lent by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340103). Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) lent his impression to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905. 14

12: Chicago 1900 (cat. nos. 192a and 192).

13: New York 1898 (cat. no. 279); New York 1903b (cat. no. 223).

14: New York 1904a (cat. no. 334); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 309).

SALES & COLLECTORS

The first sale of 'Fur tippet' by Whistler was to the London print dealer Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) in February 1888, at a price of £6.6.0. 15

Whistler listed another as '(12) Fur Tippet' in sales to H. Wunderlich & Co., at the same price, in April 1889. The firm noted that they still had one (called incorrectly 'Mrs. Lenoir') 'on hand' in 1897. However, this - or another impression - appears in an 1899 'Report of Sales' by Wunderlich's as 'Mrs. Lenoir' priced at £3.3.0, and the reduction in price, even allowing for their dealer's discount, is surprising. 16

A list of etchings on the back of a letter from Ernest George Brown (1853/1854-1915) in 1893 suggests that the Fine Art Society wanted two impressions of 'fur tippet', priced at £6.6.0 each, but it is not certain that they received them. 17

Freer bought an impression from Obach & Co. in London on 8 February 1904 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340103). Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) owned one by 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340102) as did Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), but Mansfield's has not been identified. Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) acquired one later (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340106).

Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) inherited one impression (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340104), and commissioned an impression by Frederick Goulding (1842-1909) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3340105), both of which she bequeathed to the University of Glasgow.

15: [11 February 1888], GUW #13018.

16: Whistler to Wunderlich's, 16 April 1889, GUW #13055; Wunderlich's to Whistler, [August 1897] and 24 March 1899, #07289 and #07305.

17: Brown to Whistler, 18 April 1893, GUW #02159.