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The Dance House: Nocturne |  Hunterian Art Gallery (46997) | |
| Number: | 455 | |
| Date: | 1889 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 274 x 169 mm | |
| Signed: | no | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 6 | |
| Known impressions: | 17 | |
| Catalogues: | K.408; M.407; W.265 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (17) | ||
STATE
Six states are known before cancellation.
State 1
There is no signature or inscription.
The composition is basically complete but is only partially shaded.
State 2
Considerable shading is added to the buildings in the background and to the canal and reflections in the foreground; however, shading does not extend to the left edge of the image.
State 3
More shading is added throughout the image, and now extends to the left edge; the beams of the light and the lantern's reflections at centre (and possibly some of the window panes) are burnished and appear lighter and brighter; heavy foul biting appears along the edges of the image; soft dark areas are visible above the beams of light and around the windows, where the lines of close heavy shading have broken down and created flat tonal areas.
State 4
The lantern at centre is more clearly defined, and the beams of light are narrower and more ray-like; the shape of the lower left window is changed, and the figures behind it are mostly removed; soft dark areas resulting from broken down lines are more extensive, and the effect may have been emphasized by rubbing down some lines with charcoal.
Kennedy described two states for The Dance House: Nocturne, and mistook earlier work on the plate for the later state. Kennedy's second state is actually State 4 and his first state is State 6. 15
15: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 408 state I-II).
State 5
Two figures are clearly delineated in the lower left window; close right-to-left (///) diagonal shading is added across the canal, in the foreground.
State 6
The figures in the lower left window are changed again -- there now appear to be a head in the left pane and a partial head as well as a silhouette of head and shoulders in the right pane; patches of foul biting are present among the shading near the edge of the image, below the lower left window; long vertical patches of darker shading are added to the canal, in the foreground.
As noted under State 4, above, Kennedy identified only two states and he reversed the actual order of work on the plate. The sixth and final state identified by the Whistler Etchings Project was Kennedy's first state. 16
16: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 408 state I).
State 6 (cancelled)
Cancelled with a diagonal line.
No impression from the cancelled plate is known. This is a digital image based on the copper plate. 17
No impression from the cancelled plate is known. This is a digital image based on the copper plate. 17
17: A scan of the copper plate was flipped horizontally, converted to greyscale, and colour inverted, with enhanced contrast.