UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The copper plate, with the oval stamp of HUGHES & KIMBER (LIMITED) / MANUFACTURERS / LONDON E.C.' on the verso, is similar in size (and bears a similar stamp) to the plates for Portrait sketches including F.R. Leyland and Whistler [122], Nude Posing [125] and Sir Garnet Wolseley [177], and is also quite similar in size to an unlocated plate, Speke Hall [140]. Hughes & Kimber were the copper merchants most patronised by Whistler, and this particular stamp is that found on his copper plates from around 1873 onwards.

Visiting Speke Hall in January 1873, Whistler wrote to Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907):

'Je compte vous rapporter pas mal de planches à mon retour - J'en ai pris chez Hughes et Kimber en attendant les autres de chez Maire - Je vous ferai chercher et rendre les six planches de chez moi pour que vous puissiez les faire de suite polir et me les envoyer avec les deux autres.' 9

(Translated: 'I hope to bring you numbers of plates on my return - I got some at Hughes and Kimber while waiting for the others from Maire's - I shall ask you to look out and return the six plates from me so that you can have them polished straight away and send them to me with the two others.')

The copper plate was cancelled with bold diagonal lines across parts of the figure. The cancelled plate was probably among plates 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), in exchange for lithographs. 10 The plate was later given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.