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Fumette's Bent Head

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.287)
Number: 58
Date: 1859
Medium: drypoint
Size: 229 x 154 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' at lower left (2)
Inscribed: '1859.' at lower left (2)
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 20
Catalogues: K.57; M.57; T.70; W.51
Impressions taken from this plate  (20)
Etching: PK057_01 (plate)
The copper plate bears the rectangular stamp of 'HUGHES & KIMBER / MANUFACTURERS/ RED LION SQUARE / FLEET STREET / LONDON'. The same stamp appears on several copper plates of the same size including three Thames plates of 1859 (Black Lion Wharf [54], Thames Police [53], Stevens' Boat Yard [56]) and three portraits (Whistler with a hat [44], Arthur Haden [66], Mr Mann [73]), all of 1859-1860. 5

The copper plate was probably among those cancelled at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy. It was cancelled with repeated diagonal lines across the face. The cancelled plate was probably among those bought at Whistler's bankruptcy sale by the Fine Art Society, London. It was published in the set of Cancelled Plates by the Fine Art Society in 1879.

5: Also of the same size are Z. Astruc, Editor of 'L'Artiste' [36], Venus [60], Axenfeld [68] and Riault (The Wood Engraver) [69].

The plate was probably acquired from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), in exchange for lithographs. 6

The plate was given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.

6: Note by R. Birnie Philip, inserted in album, Hunterian Art Gallery.