UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: gutekunst

Little Drawbridge, Amsterdam

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(49902)
Number: 448
Date: 1889
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 178 x 128 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 13
Catalogues: K.412; M.405; W.263
Impressions taken from this plate  (13)

KEYWORD

bridge, canal, church, drawbridge, people, tree, steeple .

TITLE

Variations on the title and punctuation are as follows:


'Little Draw-Bridge' (1890/1891, Whistler). 1
'Little Drawbridge' (1899, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 2
'The Drawbridge. Amsterdam' (1903/1935, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958)). 3
'Little Drawbridge, Amsterdam' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 4


'Little Drawbridge, Amsterdam' is based on titles used by Whistler and later cataloguers.

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

2: Wedmore 1899 (cat. no. 263).

3: Envelope containing copper plate, University of Glasgow.

4: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 405).

DESCRIPTION

A view looking down a canal to a small bridge supported upon piles. The central span is a drawbridge suspended by chains from a cantilevered beam supported on an arch at right. Men and women stand on the bridge and lean on the railings of the drawbridge. Beyond the bridge there are buildings and trees either side of the canal, and barges on the canal, and another small bridge in the distance. In the centre, above the drawbridge, rises a church steeple. There are reflections in the canal and clouds in the sky.

SITE

It was drawn from a boat moored on the Groenburgwal canal in the city of Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. The steeple of the Zuiderkerk rises up through the trees behind the bridge. The church also features in Church, Amsterdam [445]. 5

5: Heijbroek 1997 , pp. 63, 65.