UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Dry Docks, Southampton

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(46932)
Number: 302
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 67 x 178 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 9
Catalogues: K.322; M.317; W.240
Impressions taken from this plate  (9)

PUBLICATION

Although not published officially, Dry Docks, Southampton formed part of the 'Jubilee Set'.

EXHIBITIONS

It was seen first in America at H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898. 11 An impression was then shown at the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900, lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916), (Graphic with a link to impression #K3220102). 12

It was shown again in another Wunderlich show, in 1903, and, after the artist's death, in the Whistler Memorial shows in Paris and, lent by King Edward VII, in London, in 1905. 13

11: New York 1898 (cat. no. 227).

12: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 209).

13: New York 1903b (cat. no. 189); Paris Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 393); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 240).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Several print dealers bought this from Whistler, hot off the press, at £6.6.0 each. The first sale was to Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) in London on 22 August 1887; one was offered to William Craibe Angus (1830-1899) of Glasgow in December 1887; another was bought by Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) on 2 July 1888. 14 H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York bought one in May 1888 and recorded another in stock in May 1901. 15

Impressions passed from one distinguished collector to another. One, for instance, was owned by Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924) of Glasgow, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) (it was sold through Wunderlich's with MacGeorge's collection in 1903), Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935), and Albert Henry Wiggin (1868-1951), whence it passed to Boston Public Library (Graphic with a link to impression #K3220108). Another impression owned by MacGeorge was given later from the estate of Sir Byron Edmund Walker (1848-1924) to the Art Gallery of Ontario (Graphic with a link to impression #K3220105). Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) owned a sensitively wiped impression (Graphic with a link to impression #K3220107) that was sold with his collection through A. A. Hahlo & Co., New York, to Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937), and inherited by Robert N. Whittemore who gave it to the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, in 2002.

14: GUW #13089; #01959; #13063.

15: Wunderlich's to Whistler, 3 May 1888, GUW #07158; 16 May 1901, #07330.

Three impressions, the first proof and proofs of both states, were kept by Whistler and bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) who left them to the University of Glasgow (Graphic with a link to impression #K3220106, Graphic with a link to impression #K3220109, Graphic with a link to impression #K3220001).