Battersea: Early Morning | ||
Number: | 157 | |
Date: | 1875 | |
Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
Size: | 115 x 229 mm | |
Signed: | no | |
Inscribed: | no | |
Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
No. of States: | 3 | |
Known impressions: | 22 | |
Catalogues: | K.152; M.149; W.129 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (22) |
PUBLICATION
It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.
EXHIBITIONS
Battersea: Early Morning was very rare, except for cancelled impressions, and was not exhibited, as far as is known, until 1903. An early impression was exhibited by Obach & Co., in London in 1903 and bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (
). 5

5: London Obach 1903 (cat. no. 106). See REFERENCES : EXHIBITIONS.
After Whistler's death, another was shown at the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905, lent by John Charles Sigismund Day (1826-1908). 6
6: London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 129).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921) noted in 1886: 'Mr. Menpes has a trial proof before the faint indication of the little bridge at the extreme right of the plate.' 7 This impression, from the collection of Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) (
), was bought from Obach & Co. by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1903, together with another print (
).


7: Wedmore 1886 A (cat. no. 129).
Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) noted in the ledger of H. Wunderlich & Co. that he knew of three impressions of what he called 'The Troubled Thames': one was recorded as sold by 'Ballantine to Frelinghuysen', priced at $390, and two second states were owned by Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) (
), and Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937), priced at $200. 8 The latter was probably an impression of the third state, owned originally by Benedict, and later by Whittemore, which was given by Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) to the National Gallery of Art in 1949 (
).


8: Ledger, Colby College, Maine.
Sets including the cancelled impression of Battersea: Early Morning were bought by several collectors. George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) bought a set, which passed eventually to the Baltimore Museum of Art (
). The British Museum acquired a set in 1887 (
). Another was acquired in the same year, 1887, by Thomas Glen Arthur (1858-1907) (
). Yet another was bought at the Alphonse Wyatt Thibaudeau (ca 1840- d.1892) sale in 1889 by Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) for £0.6.0. 9 This was later acquired by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who bequeathed it to the University of Glasgow, 1958 (
).
Freer bought a cancelled set in 1893, which he bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art (
). J. Littauer (fl. 1896) of Munich sold another set to the Hamburger Kunsthalle, in 1896 (
). In Paris, Alfred Strölin sold a fine set to Jacques Doucet in 1907, which he gave to the Bibliothèque Jacques Doucet in 1918 (
).




Freer bought a cancelled set in 1893, which he bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art (



9: Sotheby's, 13 December 1889 (lot 787 or 789).