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The Garden Seat, Gray's Inn

Impression:

()
Number: 284
Date: 1887
Medium: etching (?)
Size: unknown mm
Signed: unknown
Inscribed: unknown
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 0
Catalogues: K.-; M.-; T.-; W.-
Impressions taken from this plate  (0)

KEYWORD

Inns of Court, landscape, park, seat.

TITLE

This etching was listed during stocktaking in Whistler's studio, as follows:

'The Garden Seat' (1887/1888, Whistler). 1
'Greys. Inn - The Garden Seat' (1890/1892, Beatrice Whistler (1857-1896)). 2

The title recorded by Whistler's wife, with added punctuation, has been accepted as helping to identify the subject clearly. Thus the title becomes 'The Garden Seat, Gray's Inn'.

1: List, [August 1887/1888], GUW #13233.

2: List, GUW #12715.

DESCRIPTION

Not known. It was probably similar to the view in The Long Seats, Gray's Inn 283.

SITE

Etching: c_K299_01
Photograph © M.F.MacDonald, Whistler Etchings Project, 2011.
Gray's Inn was a sheltered precinct in the City of London, where members of the legal profession had rooms. The walks and grounds were popular with nursemaids and mothers with children. There were - and still are - long wooden seats along each side of the broad walks.

DISCUSSION

This was probably related to Whistler's 'Grey's Inn Set', which includes The Steps, Gray's Inn 282 and The Long Seats, Gray's Inn 283. The latter, reproduced below, presumably showed a similar subject to the missing etching.
Etching: K2990103
The Garden Seat, Gray's Inn is in the same lists as these Gray's Inn etchings and is clearly listed as another work.