UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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The Steps, Gray's Inn

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1888.17)
Number: 282
Date: 1887
Medium: etching
Size: 67 x 179 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 7
Catalogues: K.295; M.290
Impressions taken from this plate  (7)
Etching: PK295_01 (plate)
The copper plate has no maker's mark. It is close in size to several plates of similar date including Dry Docks, Southampton [302], The Canal, Ostend [352], and Flower Market, Brussels [339] - all dating from 1887.

It was in Whistler's studio at his death and was bequeathed to his sister-in-law Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who asked Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956) to print some proofs. 6 It was then cancelled with a diagonal line at right. She gave the plate to the University of Glasgow in 1935.

6: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340, 343, 349.