Etchings Institutions search term: british museum
Greenwich Pensioner |  Freer Gallery of Art (1898.259) | |
| Number: | 40 | |
| Date: | 1859 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 99 x 136 mm | |
| Signed: | 'Whistler.' at lower right | |
| Inscribed: | 'Greenwich - 1859.' at lower right | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
| No. of States: | 2 | |
| Known impressions: | 34 | |
| Catalogues: | K.34; M.33; T.15; W.32 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (34) | ||
Greenwich Pensioner is dated '1859' on the copper plate. It appears to be warm and sunny enough for an elderly pensioner to sit on the grass, and so presumably dates from the summer of 1859.
Salaman wrote comparing the work of Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) and Whistler in Greenwich Park in 1859:
'Another plate of comparative interest in relation to these
two artists, who at this time were exploring, often together,
fresh woods and pastures new within the etcher's province, is
Sub Tegmine on which "Greenwich Park, 1859" in
Whistler's handwriting appears over Haden's signature. This
was done one day when the brothers-in-law were out together
on etching adventure, and it clearly marks the difference in the
two etchers' outlook; for here we see the trees of the park in
their full leafage with the sun upon them were Haden's quarry,
the Greenwich pensioner reclining in the partial shadow of
the branches being just an incidental happening in the picture.
For Whistler, on the contrary, the Greenwich pensioner himself
furnished a sufficient motive - a figure of character distinctly, as
he rested prone on the sloping sward, possibly one of Nelson's
men.' 1
1: Malcolm C. Salaman, The Etchings of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, P.R.E., London, 1923, pp. 5-6.