Etchings Institutions search term: hunterian art gallery
Little Steps, Chelsea |  Freer Gallery of Art (1902.129) | |
| Number: | 269 | |
| Date: | 1886 | |
| Medium: | etching | |
| Size: | 51 x 86 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at right | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 2 | |
| Known impressions: | 5 | |
| Catalogues: | K.262; M.258; W.213 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (5) | ||
STATE
Two states are known.
State 1
Signed with a butterfly at the right edge, just above centre.
The composition is complete.
The shading above the window consists of a single horizontal line crossed by short parallel lines.
State 2
The cartouche behind the butterfly is shaded; panels are completed on the shutter to the left of the passageway, and diagonal shading is added above it; shading is added to right of the lamp above the passageway, as well as within the shadowed passage; shading is added at the top of the shutter to the right, above it, and on the window panes at right; short diagonal and vertical lines are added to the shading above the window.
State 2 (cancelled)
Cancelled with widely-spaced crossed diagonal lines.
No impression from the cancelled plate is known. This is a digital image based on the copper plate. 10
No impression from the cancelled plate is known. This is a digital image based on the copper plate. 10
10: A scan of the copper plate was flipped horizontally, converted to greyscale, and colour inverted, with enhanced contrast.
The plate was cancelled with crossed diagonal lines, probably in 1891. Whistler discussed with Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) the possibility of printing one or two impressions from cancelled plates so that prospective buyers could see that no further prints were possible. Whistler's 'secretary' William Bell wrote when Kennedy visited London in June 1891: 'in accordance with his intentions expressed to you the other day, Mr Whistler has already destroyed a great number of the plates in question, and herewith sends you the proofs as an interesting fact of reference -
' 11
11: W. Bell to E.G. Kennedy, 8 June 1891, GUW #09674.
It was in Whistler's studio at his death and was given to the University of Glasgow by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) in 1935. The plate was cancelled with crossed diagonal lines.