Etchings Institutions search term: flemish gallery
Auguste Delâtre, Printer |  Freer Gallery of Art (1898.242) | |
| Number: | 28 | |
| Date: | 1858/1859 | |
| Medium: | etching | |
| Size: | 84 x 56 mm | |
| Signed: | 'J. Whistler.' at upper right | |
| Inscribed: | 'Homage / à Mme. Delatre.' at upper right | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
| No. of States: | 1 | |
| Known impressions: | 24 | |
| Catalogues: | K.26; M.26; T.14; W.21 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (24) | ||
This portrait of Auguste Delâtre, Printer dates from 1858 or 1859.
When Whistler returned from an etching tour of the Rhineland in 1858, the resulting copper plates were printed in Paris by Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907). This portrait could have been etched at that time, that is, between October and December 1858. In December Delâtre travelled to London where he taught both Whistler and Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910), how to print etchings, and it is more likely that the portrait was done then or early in 1859.
The copper plate was made by Hughes & Kimber, London, so it actually seems more likely that the portrait was done in London; however, by June 1859 the plate was apparently in Paris. On 29 June Haden asked Delâtre if Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) could bring the plate of 'Votre portrait ([é]barbe effacée)' (translated: 'Your portrait (burr effaced)' to London. 1
1: Haden to Delâtre, 29 June [1859], GUW #13140.