UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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The Fishing Boat

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1938.1884)
Number: 198
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 157 x 234 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right (1)
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Second Venice Set', 1886
No. of States: 6
Known impressions: 39
Catalogues: K.208; M.205; W.178
Impressions taken from this plate  (39)

STATE

Six states are known before cancellation.

State 1

Impression: K2080103
Signed with a butterfly at lower right.

There are scraping and burnishing marks, particularly on the left side of the image, and spots of foul biting at bottom and right.

State 2

Impression: K2080102
The largest spots of foul biting at right and bottom have been removed.

State 3

Impression: K2080203
Fine shading is added to the hanging nets, the awning and the man in the boat; a series of short vertical lines is added to the boat's reflection along the waterline.
Published in this and later states by Messrs Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau with the Twenty-six Etchings (the 'Second Venice Set') in 1886.

State 4

Impression: K2080303
Scraping marks at the left side of the image have been removed and fine shading on the hanging nets is very faint; right to left diagonal lines (///) reinforce shading on the right side of the awning; the butterfly signature is mostly worn away but remains faintly visible on most impressions.

The impression illustrated bears the collector's stamp of Jules Gerbeau (d. 1906) at the lower right corner. 8

8: Lugt 1166: see Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins & d'Estampes (1921, 1956) online at http://www.marquesdecollections.fr.

State 5

Impression: K2080311
Several distinct vertical bands of diagonal shading are added to the hanging nets, most notably above the centre of both sides of the awning; new right to left diagonal lines reinforce the shading on the left side of the awning.
Kennedy mistook the addition of new shading on the left of the awning for a final state when, in fact, it was added before the figure was darkened. 9

9: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 208 state 5/5).

State 6

Impression: K2080402
Patches of fine diagonal shading are added to the nets; distinct diagonal shading on the awning is reduced and covered with fine cross-hatching; the man's head and torso are shaded with fine lines.
The impression illustrated has spots of foxing at centre and lower left.

State 6 (cancelled)

Impression: K2080602
Cancelled with curved and crossed diagonal lines.