UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Chancellerie, Loches

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(46991)
Number: 411
Date: 1888
Medium: etching
Size: 271 x 166 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 7
Known impressions: 14
Catalogues: K.383; M.383
Impressions taken from this plate  (14)

PUBLICATION

It was never published. However, it is definitely part of Whistler's unpublished 'Renaissance Set'.

EXHIBITIONS

An impression was lent by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) to two exhibitions in Chicago, the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 and the show organised by the Caxton Club in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830202). 12

Impressions were shown at an international exhibition in Wolverhampton in 1902 and at the Whistler Memorial show in London in 1905, probably lent on both occasions by Laurence W. Hodson (1864-1933). 13 Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) probably lent his impression on at least two occasions, to the annual show at Philadelphia in 1902 and the Boston Memorial Exhibition of 1904. 14 An impression was also exhibited by H. Wunderlich & Co., in New York in 1903.

12: Chicago 1893 (cat. no. 2259 [1679]); Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 263). See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

13: Wolverhampton 1902 (cat. no. 123); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 334).

14: Philadelphia 1902 (cat. no. 947 [278]); Boston 1904 (cat. no. 220).

After Whistler's death, two impressions were included at the comprehensive Grolier Club show in New York in 1904, and others at the Paris Memorial in 1905 and, lent by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), in another major show in Rotterdam in 1906 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830102 or Graphic with a link to impression #K3830402). 15

15: New York 1904a (cat. nos. 372, 372b); Rotterdam 1906 (cat. no. 47).

SALES & COLLECTORS

The price was set high, at £15.15.0. Whistler first sold an impression on 14 May 1889 to H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York. This was sold immediately to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830202). Whistler then sold one on 20 July 1889 to Knoedler & Co. 16 He also sold one direct to Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) on 23 July 1889 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830403). 17

Another impression of the etching was sold to Wunderlich's in September 1897 at a revised price of £12.12.0. They recorded one sold in 1900. 18 Whistler sold an impression to David A. Kennedy (fl.1895-1915) on 20 January 1903 for the original price, £15.15.0. 19

American collectors, buying from Wunderlich's, included Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830203) and Pauline Kohlsaat Palmer (1882-1956) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830103). Other impressions may have been sold by Wunderlich's to John Henry Wrenn (1841-1911) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830302) or John Caldwell (fl. 1887-1907), who owned an impression marked 'Selected Proof -' by the artist (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830502).

16: GUW #13056, #13660.

17: Whistler to Mansfield, GUW #13046.

18: Wunderlich's to Whistler, 1897 a/c, GUW #07287; 6 April 1900, #07322.

19: 20 January 1903, GUW.

Whistler sold an impression to the London print dealer Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) on 24 December 1902, again for the high price of £15.15.0 and finally, on 8 June 1903, to Dunthorne for an even higher price, £16.16.0. 20 There were still two impressions in the studio at Whistler's death, which were bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3830102, Graphic with a link to impression #K3830402).

20: GUW #13040, #13042.