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Nut Shop, St James's Place, Houndsditch

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.486)
Number: 356
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 128 x 178 mm
Signed: butterfly at left and (faint) at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 5
Catalogues: K.291; M.285
Impressions taken from this plate  (5)

PUBLICATION

It was not published. However, it forms one of Whistler's unpublished but clearly defined 'Houndsditch Set'.

EXHIBITIONS

It was rare, and rarely exhibited. Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) lent a second state to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910202). 13 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought an impression of the first state after the 1903 exhibition at H. Wunderlich & Co., New York (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910102). 14

After Whistler's death, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent his first state impression to two Whistler Memorial Exhibitions, one in Boston in 1904, and one in London in 1905 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910103). 15

13: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 307); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

14: New York 1903b (cat. no. 218).

15: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 209); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 301).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Whistler recorded the sale of an impression of 'Nut Shop (Houndsditch)' on 29 June 1888 to the New York firm of H. Wunderlich & Co. for £12.12.0. They recorded another sale at half that price, £6.6.0, in a sales account in 1899: the disparity in price is not explained. 16 Early collectors included Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910103) and Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910202).

In 1903 Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) inherited an impression from Whistler, which she gave to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), in 1904 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910203), to go with the first state he had bought from Wunderlich's in the previous years (Graphic with a link to impression #K2910102); this was very generous since she did not keep an impression for herself.

16: Whistler to Wunderlich's, GUW #13052; Wunderlich's to Whistler, 24 March 1899, #07305.