UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The Unsafe Tenement

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1889.20)
Number: 18
Date: 1858
Medium: etching
Size: 158 x 226 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' at lower right
Inscribed: 'Imp. Delatre. Rue St. Jacques. 171.' at lower left (2-3); erased (4)
Set/Publication: 'French Set', 1858
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 76
Catalogues: K.17; M.17; T.5; W.7
Impressions taken from this plate  (76)

TECHNIQUE

This complex composition was created in pure etching. A variety of lines were used: short, slightly undulating lines for the roof, regular cross-hatching for shadows (sometimes diagonal and sometimes vertical and horizontal shading), broken outlines, jagged rough lines for the straw, dots and dashes, and small patches of regular shading, producing a wide variety of textures, light and shadow. Extensive foul biting added textures to the ground and sky.
Horizontal lines in the sky were apparently added to the plate in the second state and then removed for the published edition by Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910). 13
Impression: K0190202
This suggests that an effect similar to Street at Saverne [14] - as reproduced above - was considered and then rejected.

13: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 17).

PRINTING

The earliest impressions of The Unsafe Tenement were printed in dark brown ink on dark ivory watermarked paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170101) and cream 'modern' (post-1800) laid paper with the watermark of a bird on an oak tree branch (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170102).
These were followed by a limited print-run of the second state, possibly about ten impressions printed by Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907) in Paris. Impressions are in black ink on cream fibrous Japanese paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170209; ivory chine collé (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170206) and ivory wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170305); and in dark brown ink on 'antique' tan laid (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170211); cream 'modern' laid (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170203); and ivory 'modern' laid paper with a partial 'RIVES' watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170204).
These were followed by around 30 impressions of the third state, almost certainly printed in London, with the active participation of both Delâtre and Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910). Some third states were printed in dark brown ink on ivory wove paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170315) and in black ink on grey wove (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170314) and cream Asian laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170319). Most, however, were printed in black ink on chine collé in a wide range of shades, from ivory and cream to buff and tan, and in off-white and grey (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #K0170207, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170210, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170302, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170303, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170304, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170307, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170308, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170309, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170326, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170z07).
Kennedy stated that 'Mr. W. Dowdeswell has noted that Sir Seymour Haden said at one time that he removed the sky' in the third state, and that 'Impressions in [the fourth] state are recent.' 14 These late impressions were mostly printed in black ink on Asian papers including cream Japanese paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170402); laid paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170403, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170404) and dark cream tissue (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170411) but also in dark brown ink on light-weight ivory laid western paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0170z12, Graphic with a link to impression #K0170z17).

14: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 17).