UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The Village Sweet Shop

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1906.107)
Number: 266
Date: 1886
Medium: etching
Size: 82 x 124 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 14
Catalogues: K.251; M.247; W.205
Impressions taken from this plate  (14)

TECHNIQUE

This plate was executed in pure etching. Whistler may have brushed acid over some areas to produce textured effects. He certainly manipulated foul biting on the wooden shutter to right of the doorway by removing it from individual panels and burnishing those areas to create subtle highlights. This is most notable on the top centre panel of the shutter.

PRINTING

All known impressions were printed in dark brown ink on laid paper in shades ranging from ivory (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #K2510118) to cream and buff. Some have watermarks, such as a possible Strasbourg Lily (Graphic with a link to impression #K2510114), Pro Patria on a sheet taken from an old ledger (Graphic with a link to impression #K2510105), and a shield (Graphic with a link to impression #K2510103). Another impression, on off-white laid paper, also seems to have been taken from an old book and has a pen inscription on the verso (Graphic with a link to impression #K2510108). All are trimmed to the platemark and one (Graphic with a link to impression #K2510102) well within the platemark. All are signed on the tab with a butterfly, which can be dated to 1886 or 1887.
Messrs Dowdeswell, London art dealers, after consulting the newly published catalogue by Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921), requested impressions of a number of etchings in February 1887 including Wedmore's '205'. 14 By 8 February Whistler was at work printing the copper plates to satisfy their order. He sold three impressions to Messrs Dowdeswell in July, and on 4 September 1887 he recorded printing eight more impressions of 'Sweet Shop'. 15 It is impossible to distinguish between the earliest and later impressions, but all seem to have been done within just over a year.

14: Dowdeswell's to Whistler, 4 February 1887, GUW #00888.

15: Dowdeswell to Whistler, 27 July 1887, GUW #08677; Whistler, list, [8 February-26 September 1887], #12716.