UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Mairie, Loches

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1889.7)
Number: 413
Date: 1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 220 x 130 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 12
Catalogues: K.382; M.382; W.259
Impressions taken from this plate  (12)

KEYWORD

building, children, people, Renaissance architecture, street, streetscape, woman standing.

TITLE

There are many minor variations on the title, as follows:



'La mairie à Loches' (1890, Brussels). 1
'Mayoralty Building, Loches' (1893, Chicago). 2
'The Maireé. [sic] Loches' (1887/1888, Whistler). 3
'Mairie Loches' (1889, Whistler). 4
'The Mairie (Loches)' (1889, Exposition Universelle). 5
'Mairie, Loches' (1899, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 6
'Mairie The Loches' (1890/1891, Whistler). 7
'La Mairie. Loches' (1905, Paris). 8



'Mairie, Loches' is the preferred title, as recorded by Wedmore and based on Whistler's title (with added punctuation but without the combination of English and French language). The mairie is the town hall.

1: Brussels 1890 (cat. no. 1051).

2: Chicago 1893 (cat. no. 2258 [1678]).

3: List, [1887/1888], GUW #13233.

4: List, 18 July 1889, GUW #13235.

5: Paris Exp. Univ. 1889 (cat. no. 419).

6: Wedmore 1899 (cat. no. 259).

7: List, [1890/1891], GUW #13236.

8: Paris Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 409).

DESCRIPTION

In the foreground two women and a small child walk towards the viewer along a narrow street, which curves to the right in front of a taller building with an elaborately decorated façade. Several women are standing in the arched doorway. On the first floor the louvred shutters of a window open into a dark interior where a lamp is visible. A small closed window is above this, and then a huge, many-paned window with a balcony, between pilasters that support a narrow cornice. Above this, another window with elaborate carved pillars, topped with a double cornice and sculptural details, juts out of the steep roof.

SITE

The town hall in the town of Loches, in the Loire valley, France.