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The Little Rag Shop, Milman's Row

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(54878)
Number: 265
Date: 1886
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 71 x 103 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 6
Catalogues: K.257; M.253; W.209
Impressions taken from this plate  (6)

PUBLICATION

The Little Rag Shop, Milman's Row was not published.

EXHIBITIONS

It has been rarely exhibited. The first two known exhibitions took place at H. Wunderlich & Co., in New York, in 1898 and 1903. 14 Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought an impression from the latter show (Graphic with a link to impression #K2570102).

It also appeared in the Memorial shows after Whistler's death. For instance, an impression was shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, and Messrs Ernest Brown & Phillips lent an impression to the Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905. 15

14: New York 1898 (cat. no. 209), New York 1903b (cat. no. 169); see REFERENCES : EXHIBITIONS.

15: New York 1904a (cat. no. 218); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 209).

SALES & COLLECTORS

On 5 October 1887 Whistler sold 'The Rag shop / Chelsea', which may have been this etching or The Rag Shop, Milman's Row [290], to the London print dealer, Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) for £4.4.0. 16 This may have been the impression of the first state owned by Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924), which was later bought from H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1903 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2570102).

16: GUW #13014.

On 3 May 1888 the artist sold 'The Little Rag Shop - Chelsea' (which was definitely this etching) for £6.6.0 to Wunderlich's, to be forwarded to Ross Revillon Winans (1850-1912). 17

17: G. Dieterlen to Whistler, 3 May 1888, GUW #07158.

An impression was in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who in turn bequeathed it to the University of Glasgow (Graphic with a link to impression #K2570103). One was owned in turn by Tracy Dows (1871-1937), Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) and Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971), who gave it to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Graphic with a link to impression #K2570202). Another, from the collection of Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937), was bought by the Pennell Fund for the Library of Congress (Graphic with a link to impression #K2570204).