Etchings Institutions search term: british museum
Little Arthur |  Freer Gallery of Art (1898.227) | |
| Number: | 8 | |
| Date: | 1857/1858 | |
| Medium: | etching | |
| Size: | 81 x 54 (K5) 57 x 48 mm | |
| Signed: | 'J.W.' at lower left (1-3); 'Whistler' at lower right (2-3); removed (4); 'Whistler' at lower left (4). | |
| Inscribed: | 'Imp. Delatre. Rue. St. Jacques. 171.' at lower left (3) | |
| Set/Publication: | 'French Set', 1858 | |
| No. of States: | 4 | |
| Known impressions: | 61 | |
| Catalogues: | K.9; M.7; T.8; W.13 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (61) | ||
PUBLICATION
), who presumably bought them in Paris.11: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 7).
EXHIBITIONS
It was also exhibited in public exhibitions, such as in Philadelphia in 1879. 14 Two of three impressions owned by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) were lent to an exhibition at the Union League Club, New York, in 1881 (
, , ) and Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) lent his impression to an exhibition organised by the Caxton Club, Chicago, in 1900 (). 15
Others were for sale in print dealer's shows, particularly at H. Wunderlich & Co. (1898 and 1903) and F. Keppel & Co. (1902) in New York, and Obach & Co. in London in 1903. 16 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought two of the exhibits at Wunderlich's in 1898.
After Whistler's death, Little Arthur was exhibited in the big Memorial Exhibitions in New York, Paris and London. For instance, an impression was lent by King Edward VII to the Whistler Memorial show in London in 1905. 17
12: Hague 1863 ; see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
13: Liverpool 1874 (cat. nos. 508, 508a).
14: Philadelphia 1879 .
15: New York 1881 (cat. nos. 18, 19); Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 13).
16: New York 1898 (cat. no. 12), New York 1903b (cat. nos. 8a, 8b).
17: New York 1904a (cat. nos. 14 a,b, c); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 13); Paris Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 294).
SALES & COLLECTORS
, ) including Thomas de Kay Winans (1820-1878) (), patrons () and public. Winans bought Whistler's etchings in the summer of 1859, through Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910), to whom he wrote on 20 June: 'I enclose two drafts on Liverpool amounting to £63 sterling and as requested by you, for the etchings - they arrived in good order and are considered very fine, doing Jemmy great credit, I hope he will get up another sett' [sic]. 18 By that date Whistler was indeed at work on the next set, of the Thames.18: GUW #07079.
). Haden also owned a first () and third () state, which were sold in 1898 through H. Wunderlich & Co., and with the advice of Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) ().), and another from 'Mr Thomas' - either Edmund Thomas (1842-1883) or Percy Thomas (1846-1922) - in 1872 (). 19
19: B.M. Register of Purchases ... 1872.
20: Whistler to Delâtre, 22 January [1873], GUW #11190.
,
, ). These went with his collection to form the basis of the Print Collection in New York Public Library. The Library also received the gift of a good impression of the final state from the print dealer, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) ().Colnaghi's handled several third states; for instance, one went to the Library of Congress (
), and another to Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) and thence to the National Gallery of Art (). One owned by Charles Sydenham Haden (1822-1898) was eventually bought through Colnaghi's by Margaret Selkirk Watson Parker (1867-1936) and bequeathed to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (), and another was sold to Albert Henry Wiggin (1868-1951) and went to Boston Public Library (). Impressions tended to pass from dealer to dealer: both Colnaghi's and Knoedler's handled one owned by Alfred Beurdeley (1847-1919) and later by Charles A. Coffin (1844-1926) (); likewise both Colnaghi's and Wunderlich's handled another (). Colnaghi's sold one to the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden in 1897 () and Obach & Co. sold another to the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, 1908, this for the bargain basement price of £2.10.0 ().21: Wedmore 1886 A (cat. no. 13).
22: Sotheby's, 30 April 1876 (lots 734-736) 'First state' bought by 'Riggall', £2.7.0, 'second' and 'third' by Hogarth for £0.15.0 and £8.0.0; 28 February 1890 (lot 474) bought by 'Price', £0.10.0; 3 March 1892 (lot 55) 'third state' bought by 'Blunt', £0.12.0.
). Other collectors included James Guthrie Orchar (1825-1888) (); George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) (); Henry F. Sewall (1816-1896) (); Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) (); Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (); Clarence Buckingham (1855-1913) (); James A. McCallum (1862-1948) (); Edward de Turck Bechtel (1880-1957) (); and Pauline Kohlsaat Palmer (1882-1956) ().