UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: heinemann

Café Corazza, Paris

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(46652)
Number: 484
Date: 1897
Medium: etching
Size: 133 x 221 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.436; M.432
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)

TECHNIQUE

This is an unfinished etching.

PRINTING

Only four impressions are known. Two are in black ink on Asian laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K4360102, and Graphic with a link to impression #K4360104). Both are trimmed to the platemark and the first is signed with a butterfly on the tab - indeed it is the only signed impression. These impressions suggest that the printer - whether Whistler or an assistant or someone later - was having problems with the plate. The first impression mentioned appears to have slipped slightly in the printing (Graphic with a link to impression #K4360102), and another impression, in dark brown ink on cream laid paper, appears to have been poorly inked, so that some of the lines print blind, with the ink caught on the edges of the lines (Graphic with a link to impression #K4360103). Similar problems in printing occurred in a related plate, Boulevard Poissonière, Paris [483]. This rarely happened in Whistler's work, but suggests he was having problems printing in Paris in the 1890s (see Graphic with a link to impression #K4230103, Graphic with a link to impression #K4210103, Graphic with a link to impression #K4270102, Graphic with a link to impression #K4360102). These could be due to problems with the printing press, or an assistant, or his own strength.
All of these impressions are trimmed to the platemark, with a tab left for a signature. However, only one is signed, both on the tab and in the image, with Whistler's butterfly (Graphic with a link to impression #K4360102).