UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The Little Mast

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1934.600)
Number: 196
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 269 x 189 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'First Venice Set', 1880
No. of States: 8
Known impressions: 50
Catalogues: K.185; M.182; W.151
Impressions taken from this plate  (50)
Etching: PK185_01 (plate)
The copper plate has no maker's mark. It was a different size from any other plate and may have been made for Whistler in Venice. 6
The Little Mast was published in Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (the 'First Venice Set') by the Fine Art Society, London, in 1880. It was first cancelled with diagonal lines, and then with a large butterfly surrounded by radiating lines.
In 1902 the cancelled copper plate was bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), who bequeathed it to the Freer Gallery of Art. 7

7: Acc. No. 1902.130.