UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Sleeping Child, Ajaccio

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(49916)
Number: 488
Date: 1901
Medium: etching
Size: 153 x 190 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 18
Catalogues: K.-; M.-; T.-; W.-
Impressions taken from this plate  (18)

TECHNIQUE

The figures and house-front are drawn with broken lines, and the shadows with irregular patches of diagonal shading and some cross-hatching. MacInnes writes:
'Throughout the print Whistler builds up his effects with short lines, often of great delicacy, - the weathered wood around the door, light reflected from the windows at its side - an intricate network in the shadows into which the woman at right is receding and from which the group in the doorway emerges; creating an atmosphere to which the figures contribute and of which they are an essential part.' 5

5: MacInnes 1969, p. 336.

PRINTING

No impression of Sleeping Child, Ajaccio printed by Whistler has been located. It was printed in 1931 in a limited edition of about 25 by Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956), who signed all the impressions on the verso. 6

Most impressions are in the Hunterian Art Gallery. They are printed in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper, a high proportion having a foolscap watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #E020112, Graphic with a link to impression #E020110, Graphic with a link to impression #E020114) but one impression is on ivory wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #E020108). They are not trimmed, but have a wide margin of about 50mm. Although printed in a consistent manner by Sparks, there are minor variations in inking and surface tone.

6: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340, 346, 352.