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The Boy (Charlie Hanson)

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1893.91)
Number: 145
Date: 1875/1876
Medium: drypoint
Size: 226 x 150 mm
Signed: butterfly at left (2-final)
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 8
Known impressions: 12
Catalogues: K.135; M.133; W.109
Impressions taken from this plate  (12)

TECHNIQUE

It was drawn entirely in drypoint, and early impressions were printed with richly inked burr (Graphic with a link to impression #K1350102).

PRINTING

After initial proofs there was a print-run of about a dozen impressions. The first proofs were printed in black ink on cream laid paper watermarked 'De Erven De Blauw' (Graphic with a link to impression #K1350102); and on a sheet of ivory laid paper taken from an old book (Graphic with a link to impression #K1350302). Most impressions are on ivory 'antique' (pre-1800) laid paper with the Arms of Amsterdam watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K1350303, Graphic with a link to impression #K1350504), including some sheets clearly removed from a book (Graphic with a link to impression #K1350402, Graphic with a link to impression #K1350703); plus some with a countermark, possibly 'HD' (Graphic with a link to impression #K1350502, Graphic with a link to impression #K1350503, Graphic with a link to impression #K1350702) the latter also probably taken from a book.
Impression: K1350703
One impression - of the seventh state, reproduced above - was worked over extensively in wash, but the suggested alterations were not made, since the drypoint was fading considerably.
However, at the request of Whistler's sister-in-law, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), three impressions were printed in 1931 by Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956), who commented that the plate was 'greatly worne' [sic] and that he used 'Different papers - One with pailings others with no watermark -' 8 The 'One with pailings' was presumably 'Pro Patria' watermarked laid paper. These impressions were presumably of the eighth and final state but they have not been located and were probably destroyed.

8: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340, 344, 351-352.