UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Like a number of plates started in Venice, Doorway and Vine began as an almost fully realised composition in pure etching. Whistler then employed both etching and drypoint for many minor changes to the copper plate. These were mostly adjustments to the shading within the passageway and alterations to the distant view across the canal and the figures in the window above the passageway.

It is possible that Whistler was influenced to make changes to the figures by an 1883 review which commented 'the figures (are they figures?) are as impalpable as those spectral forms which Mr. Listless scoffed at in Nightmare Abbey.' 10

The first state of Doorway and Vine was printed in black ink on ivory laid paper with a small margin (). No impression of the second state has been located. The third state was printed in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper with a hunting horn watermark (, ). This state of the etching was selected for publication, and an impression was printed by Émile Frédéric Salmon (1840-1913) in black ink on thin pale buff laid paper - possibly an Asian paper (). However, this looked distinctly thin and flat, and the etching was considerably reworked and printed by Whistler for publication. For a start he usually printed it in dark brown ink, creating a warmer effect of colour, sun and shade.

Doorway and Vine was published by Messrs Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau with the Twenty-six Etchings or the 'Second Venice Set' in 1886. The record of impressions for this edition lists fourteen delivered on 21 October and one on 26 October 1886; four on 28 June, five on 2 July, and twenty-three on 7 July 1887, a total of 47. 11

Fourth and sixth states - kept by the artist - were printed on ivory laid paper (, ). One seventh state is on dark ivory wove paper (). These could be considered 'proofs' as Whistler worked out what the main published edition should be. All were almost certainly printed in 1886. The edition was printed on a variety of Asian and western papers, mainly in the ninth and subsequent nine states, touching up the drypoint throughout in order to maintain the shadows and delicate detail.

For the main edition, Asian papers include ninth states on ivory Asian laid () and buff Japan (). Later (tenth to twelfth) states include ones on cream laid paper (, ); ivory 'antique' (pre-1800) paper (, ) and paper watermarked with a crown over a posthorn (). Another impression is printed in a lighter brown ink on light grey paper with 'S WISE & CO / 1825' watermark (). A late - 16th - state is on ivory laid paper with Strasbourg Lily 'LVG' watermark () and a 17th state on cream laid paper watermarked with a crown over the Strasbourg lily over '4/BVG' ().

Whistler retained two eleventh states, one on medium-weight cream laid paper () and one on ivory laid (); two twelfth states on 'antique' laid (, ), a 13th state in black ink on ivory laid paper () and two cancelled impressions. Presumably these were 'printer's proofs', the printer's perquisites, that he could have sold separately from the impressions delivered to the publishers.

Cancelled impressions are in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper with Marlowe watermark (), cream laid with 'IV' countermark (); and ivory laid with a Strasbourg Lily over 'LVG' watermark () similar to that used for the 16th state mentioned above.