Etchings Institutions search term: boston museum
Nocturne: Palaces |  Hunterian Art Gallery (46849) | |
| Number: | 200 | |
| Date: | 1879/1880 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 298 x 202 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at lower left (12) | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Second Venice Set', 1886 | |
| No. of States: | 12 | |
| Known impressions: | 54 | |
| Catalogues: | K.202; M.199; W.168 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (54) | ||
PUBLICATION
Whistler delivered in all 1093 prints and was paid £2.10.6 for printing each dozen prints. 13
13: Dowdeswell to Whistler, invoice 16 July 1887, GUW #00891.
EXHIBITIONS
One critic admired its 'broad treatment', another (John Forbes-Roberston), its 'richness of effect'. 15 Another critic, from the Building News, commented:
14: London FAS 1883 (cat. no. 12).
15: Anon., 'Mr. Whistler', unidentified press-cutting, [February/March 1883], (GUL pc 3/44); Pictorial World, 31 March 1883 (GUL PC 8/8).
16: Anon., 'Mr Whistler's Etchings', Building News, 23 February 1883 (GUL PC6/42).
Ten years later, an impression was lent to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), who had selected the panel of Whistler's prints, and in 1902 he lent one to the Annual Exhibition in Philadelphia. After Whistler's death, Mansfield lent his impression to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in Boston in 1904; Frank Lusk Babbott (1854-1903) also lent an impression to that show. 18
17: Anon., Coventry Standard, 23 February 1883 (GUL PC6/42).
18: Chicago 1893 (cat. no. 2248 (1665)); Philadelphia 1902 (cat. no. 947 (168)); Boston 1904 (cat. nos. 133, 134).
) and Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (either , or ) to an exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900. 19 Two were included in the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901, one lent by James Cox-Cox (ca 1849- d.1901) and the other by Andrew Reid. 20 Other impressions were shown in 1901 at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, and in 1902 at the Art and Industrial Exhibition in Wolverhampton. It appeared in several print dealer's shows, at H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, in 1898 (possibly
) and 1903, F. Keppel & Co., also in New York, in 1902 and 1904, and at Obach & Co. in London in 1903. 21
19: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 148).
20: Glasgow 1901 (cat. nos. 212, 237).
21: New York 1898 (cat. no. 147); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
22: New York 1904a (cat. nos. 170 a, c, d, e); Rotterdam 1906 (cat. no. 78).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Thereafter most impressions were sold by the publishers, and indeed Messrs Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau gave a beautiful impression to the British Museum, London, in 1887 (
). Alphonse Wyatt Thibaudeau (ca 1840- d.1892) sold an impression to H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York in May 1888, which they in turn sold with a complete 'Second Venice Set' to Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) (). Thibaudeau sold another to Wunderlich's on 2 May 1888; this had a complicated history, being sold to A.J Forbes Leith (1847-1925) in 1889, returned in 1890, sold again in 1891, and eventually passed from Mr and Mrs Horatio Greenough Curtis (1844 - ca 1923) to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.) of F. Keppel & Co. Wunderlich's sold another fine impression to Freer in 1893 (). Margaret Selkirk Watson Parker (1867-1936) bought an impression from Keppel, some years later, in 1904 ().). 24 Whistler was allowed to sell such early proofs, considered 'printer's proofs', which were an accepted perquisite, and sold outside the published edition. Many years later, in 1906, this was bought from Rouillier, Chicago print dealer, by Freer.24: GUW #13068.
); George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) (); John Henry Wrenn (1841-1911) (); Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) (); Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924) (); Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (); Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) ();William Bayard Cutting (1850–1912) (); Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) (); Clarence Buckingham (1855-1913) (); Herschel V. Jones (1861-1928) (); Atherton Curtis (1863-1944) () and Walter Stanton Brewster (1872-1954) (, ).