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The Fur Cloak - Mrs Herbert

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1893.24)
Number: 367
Date: 1887
Medium: drypoint
Size: 218 x 128 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.332; M.328; W.221
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)

PUBLICATION

The Fur Cloak - Mrs Herbert was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

It was very rarely exhibited, though one impression was lent by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) to a show organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3320102). 12 Another impression was on show and for sale by Obach & Co. in London in 1903.

After Whistler's death, one impression was shown at the Grolier Club exhibition of 1904 in New York. Finally Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) lent one to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905 (Graphic with a link to impression #K3320103). 13

12: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 191); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

13: New York 1904a (cat. no. 230); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 221).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Whistler sold direct to a limited number of print dealers. The first sale of what was then called 'The Fur Cloak' was to the London print dealer Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) in November 1888 for £10.10.0 . 14 This may have been the impression owned by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934), which was later bought by Margaret Selkirk Watson Parker (1867-1936) (Graphic with a link to impression #K3320103) and bequeathed to the University of Michigan Museum of Art. This is the only known impression now outside of Washington DC.

14: Whistler to T. McLean, 17 November 1887, and [11 February 1888?], GUW #13016 and #13018.

Whistler sold 'Fur Cloak Mrs. H.' at the same price - £10.10.0 - to Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) of H. Wunderlich & Co., New York on 12 April 1893. 15 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought this on 19 June (Graphic with a link to impression #K3320102); it was bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art. Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) bought what Whistler called 'Fur cloak - 1st state', and this was later sold through A.A. Hahlo & Co. to Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937), and eventually bought with the Pennell Fund by the Library of Congress (Graphic with a link to impression #K3320202). The only other impression that has been located passed through the firm of Knoedler & Co., New York, and was acquired by Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971), who gave it to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Graphic with a link to impression #K3320302).

15: Kennedy to Whistler, GUW #07214.