UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Gretchen at Heidelberg

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.226)
Number: 21
Date: 1858
Medium: etching
Size: 205 x 156 mm
Signed: 'Whistler' at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.20; M.20; T.33; W.12
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)
Gretchen at Heidelberg dates from 1858. It may have been drawn and etched during Whistler's etching tour of the Rhineland between 14 August and 7 October 1858, but was not published in the 'French Set' on his return to Paris.
Howard Mansfield wrote that it was etched on the journey into Germany in 1858. 1

Stylistically the etching dates from 1858 or 1859; it is drawn with great attention to detail but far less freely than the etchings of the 'French Set'.

1: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 20).