UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The Mill

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1906.127)
Number: 457
Date: 1889
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 161 x 241 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 6
Known impressions: 13
Catalogues: K.413; M.415
Impressions taken from this plate  (13)

STATE

Six states are known before cancellation.

State 1

Impression: K4130102
Signed with a butterfly at lower left.
The composition is mostly complete.

State 2

Impression: K4130104
Shading is added between the head and hand of the woman seated under the window at the centre, altering her profile, which now has a receding chin; a small patch of shading is added to the lower right of the sack in front of the standing woman.

State 3

Impression: K4130201
Shading is removed from the arms and torso of the standing woman behind the sack and from the top of the sack; her hair is changed, and her left ear is now prominent; fine slightly diagonal shading now covers much of the wall to left of the open doorway; horizontal and slanting lines are added to the floor below the sack in front of the standing woman; fine left to right diagonal lines (\\\) cover the top half of the large post at right as well as the brace to right of it; fine left to right diagonals cover the edge of the millstone visible to left of the large post; a slightly diagonal line of foul biting appears at lower right, and extends from the shading of the floor to the edge of the image.
Kennedy said that the sky had been 'almost completely removed' in this state (his second). 7 However, the impression he pictured is the only known proof of the state, and his reproduction is rather pale and grey, so it is unclear if the lines are actually present, worn or removed.

7: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 413) state 2/5.

State 4

Impression: K4130301
Horizontal shading is added on the wall to left of the open doorway, and the post to right of the doorway is now shaded with horizontals and diagonals as far down as the top of the flowers in pots; fine horizontal lines (some slightly curved) are added to the floor in the foreground; in the distant view, the two mills at left are shaded, and fine right to left diagonals (///) are added below the clouds at the centre.

State 5

Impression: K4130z03
Fine diagonal and horizontal shading is added at upper right; much of the shading on the post to right of the doorway is removed, along with the dark shading on the side of the cabinet to its left; patches of shading are added to the bodice of the dress of the woman standing behind the sack and to the top of the sack; the edge of the millstone to left of the large post at right is heavily shaded and more difficult to distinguish, as is the vase of flowers between it and the window at right; right to left diagonal shading (///) is added to the floor between the post at right and the stacked sacks at centre; the heavy shading on the ceiling, sacks and on and around the figures is worn or deliberately softened.

State 6

Impression: K4130502
Diagonal and vertical shading is added at the top edge of the image at centre; two series of left to right diagonals (\\\) are added above the flower pots to right of the open doorway; the torso of the woman standing behind the sack is more evenly shaded, and patches of drypoint shading are added throughout the heavily shaded areas of the interior; two patches of granular foul biting appear at the left edge of the image, at centre and at the lower left corner.

State 6 (cancelled)

Etching: PS_K413_01 (plate)
Cancelled with a diagonal line.

No impression from the cancelled plate is known. This is a digital image based on the copper plate. 8

8: A scan of the copper plate was flipped horizontally, converted to greyscale, and colour inverted, with enhanced contrast.