UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Hôtel de la Croix Blanche

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.584)
Number: 395
Date: 1888
Medium: etching
Size: 177 x 126 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 3
Catalogues: K.373; M.373
Impressions taken from this plate  (3)
Etching: PK373_01 (plate)
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK373_02 (plate)
The copper plate for Hôtel de la Croix Blanche bears the maker's oval stamp: 'HUGHES & KIMBER (LIMITED) / MANUFACTURERS / LONDON E.C.' It is close in size to several other plates used in 1887 and 1888 including T. A. Nash's Greengrocer's Shop [298], After the Sale, Clothes Exchange, Houndsditch [357], Gray's Inn Place [281], The Wine Shop, Amboise [430] and The Clock Tower - Amboise [429].
The plate for Hôtel de la Croix Blanche was in Whistler's studio at his death and was bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who gave it to the University of Glasgow in 1935. It was cancelled posthumously by a diagonal line across the lower left corner.
A plate was listed during stock-taking in Whistler's studio as 'Hotel Kitchen / 7 x 5'. 8 7 x 5" is 178 x 127mm. Hôtel de la Croix Blanche is a vertical plate of similar size (176 x 125mm) to the listed etching, showing poultry in the courtyard of a hotel, which could by a slight leap of the imagination be a scene outside a kitchen! It is possible that the title was recorded incorrectly (could 'Hotel Chickens' have been written as 'Hotel Kitchen'?). It is also possible that the birds in the courtyard were gathered round the kitchen door.

8: Whistler, list, [August 1887/1888], GUW #13233.