UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Murano - Glass Furnace is entirely drypoint. Whistler took the plate through four states, clarifying the figures and extending the elaborate shading and cross-hatching, but the work remained unfinished.

From the second state on, fairly prominent scraping marks are evident on the left side of the image, between the figures near the wall and the men working by the left side of the furnace. It is not clear what lines or defect may have been removed, as there is nothing in that area in the first state of the drypoint. While it is possible that there was an intermediate state, between the first and second, no evidence of this has been discovered.

Murano - Glass Furnace is fairly rare. Two impressions of the first state are in brown ink with horizontally wiped ink tone on ivory laid paper, one sheet being taken from a book, with sewing holes at the left edge (), the other on light-weight 'antique' (pre-1800) laid paper ().

Later impressions were printed in black ink. One impression of the second state was printed on dark cream paper, with smooth rich plate tone () and one on off-white laid paper with the watermark 'Fellows' (). Impressions of the third state are on cream laid paper taken from a book () and on ivory laid paper with a hunting horn watermark (). No impression of the final state has been located.

Impressions of the second and later states were trimmed to the platemark and signed on a tab with Whistler's butterfly and 'imp.' to show that he had printed them. The second state appears to have been signed in the mid-1880s (), and later states in 1889 or the early 1890s (). It is not clear if the drypoint was reprinted in 1889 since it is possible that Whistler only signed impressions when he sold them - and he sold four impressions to Messrs Dowdeswell in 1889. 12