UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Impression: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la photographie
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la photographie
(Rés EC 123 Folio 3)
Number: 228
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: drypoint
Size: 167 x 236 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 2
Catalogues: K.225; M.222; W.198
Impressions taken from this plate  (2)

TECHNIQUE

The plate was executed in pure drypoint.

PRINTING

It is very rare: only four impressions are recorded of which only two have been located (Graphic with a link to impression #K2250z01 and Graphic with a link to impression #K2250302). The '1st proof', which has not been located, appears to have been worked on in pen and ink, or else printed with extreme retroussage, suggesting developments to the figures (Graphic with a link to impression #K2250101). The next proof is less rich and inky and shows considerable but uneven burr (Graphic with a link to impression #K2250z01).
One impression of the final state, printed in brown ink, is pale, with uneven tone (Graphic with a link to impression #K2260302) while another, in black, is very roughly inked (Graphic with a link to impression #K2260301).
In 1931 Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956) recorded printing '3 Proofs ... A slight plate possibly a first state & never printed: paper from his book' - meaning on paper from Whistler's collection - at the request of Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 10 These impressions have not been located for sure - although it is just possible that they are the impressions of the final state mentioned above, one of which is signed with a rather odd 'butterfly' (Graphic with a link to impression #K2260301).

10: Note dated 18 June 1931, (Notebook f.3); see Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340-341, 349.