UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The copper plate bears the stamp of 'B. MAIRE / PLANEUR A PARIS'. This stamp has been found on only seven extant copper plates: Shipping at Liverpool [100], Sketches of Heads [138], Speke Shore [139], Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2 [159], Lindsey Houses [161], Greenhithe [173] and Battersea Morn [174], which range in date from 1867 to 1877. The size of these copper plates is similar though not identical, ranging from 150 x 225 mm to 231 x 155 mm. Of these, Speke Shore, Shipping at Liverpool [100] and Sketches of Heads [138] were executed at Speke Hall near Liverpool.

Whistler could have bought several plates at the same time, even as early as 1867, or on different occasions when visiting Paris. He wrote to Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907) from Speke Hall in 1875 :

'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 - ' (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'). 8

The copper plate was cancelled with a few rough crossed diagonal lines, and short zigzag lines across the figure and parts of the landscape. 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, in exchange for lithographs, from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 9 The plate was given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.