Etchings Institutions search term: metropolitan museum
F. R. Leyland |  Freer Gallery of Art (1907.150) | |
| Number: | 121 | |
| Date: | 1874/1875 | |
| Medium: | etching, drypoint and open bite | |
| Size: | 304 x 177 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at right | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
| No. of States: | 2 | |
| Known impressions: | 20 | |
| Catalogues: | K.102; M.103; W.93 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (20) | ||
TECHNIQUE
This is a combination of etching and drypoint, with repeated - rather uncertain - outlines, and with patches of fine shading for the figure, and bolder shading in the background. It appears that Whistler also painted acid on the plate ('open bite') to produce the shadows at right behind Leyland's head, shoulder and elbow. There are also blotches produced from acid on the plate that were not burnished out before the plate was cancelled.
PRINTING
Wedmore rightly commented that 'Only a very few copies of this unfinished dry-point have ever been circulated, and the plate is now destroyed.' 11
Only three impressions before cancellation have been located. The proofs are very roughly printed, and the whole plate was not inked. Impressions of the first and second state were printed in black ink on Asian laid paper (
, ).
Only three impressions before cancellation have been located. The proofs are very roughly printed, and the whole plate was not inked. Impressions of the first and second state were printed in black ink on Asian laid paper (
, ).11: Wedmore 1886 A (cat. no. 93).
It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates by the Fine Art Society, London, 1879. This published edition, probably about 20, was usually printed in black ink on ivory or off-white laid paper, and bound in an album (, , ). Some impressions were cut from the album and trimmed, or possibly printed separately and trimmed, and in the case of the set that came to the Hunterian Art Gallery, stuck on the envelope containing the copper plate.
, , ). Some impressions were cut from the album and trimmed, or possibly printed separately and trimmed, and in the case of the set that came to the Hunterian Art Gallery, stuck on the envelope containing the copper plate.