Etchings Institutions search term: british museum
Brushing the Hair |  Hunterian Art Gallery (46766) | |
| Number: | 94 | |
| Date: | 1863 | |
| Medium: | drypoint | |
| Size: | 231 x 154 mm | |
| Signed: | 'Whistler.' at lower right | |
| Inscribed: | '1863.' at lower right | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
| No. of States: | 1 | |
| Known impressions: | 17 | |
| Catalogues: | K.93; M.93 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (17) | ||
Recto, above; verso, below:
The cancelled copper plate bears the rectangular stamp of the makers: 'HUGHES AND KIMBER / MANUFACTURERS / RED LION PASSAGE / FLEET STREET / LONDON'. They were Whistler's favourite suppliers of copper plates. It was cancelled lightly with a few crossed diagonal drypoint lines over the women's heads and with the girl's face partly burnished out.
The cancelled plate was probably among those bought at Whistler's bankruptcy sale by the Fine Art Society, London. It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.
The copper plate was probably among those acquired from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851), by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who explained: 'A number of these plates were returned to me after the artist's death by Robert Dunthorne of Vigo Street, London in exchange for a number of lithographic proofs'. 8
8: Note by R. Birnie Philip, inserted in the album, Hunterian Art Gallery.
The plate was later given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.