UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Fishing Boats, Hastings

Impression: Colby College Museum of Art, Maine
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine
(2013.348)
Number: 163
Date: 1876/1877
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 152 x 255 mm
Signed: butterfly at left (1); replaced with new butterfly (2-3); replaced again (4)
Inscribed: 'Hastings -' at lower right
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 7
Catalogues: K.158; M.155; W.131
Impressions taken from this plate  (7)

PUBLICATION

Fishing-Boats, Hastings was not published.

EXHIBITIONS

It was only rarely exhibited. Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) lent his impression to the Union League Club in New York in 1881 (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580208). 6 Later, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent one to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900. 7

An impression shown by H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1903 8 and bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580204) is reproduced below.
Impression: K1580204

No less than three impressions were shown in the comprehensive show at the Grolier Club, also in New York, in 1904, one again probably lent by Freer (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580204). 9 One was lent from the Royal Collection to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905 (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580206). 10

6: New York 1881 (cat. no. 145).

7: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 116).

8: New York 1903b (cat. no. 98); See REFERENCES : EXHIBITIONS.

9: New York 1903b (cat. no. 98); New York 1904a (cat. nos. 134a,b,c).

10: London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 131).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Early collectors included Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580208) and Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580301). An impression signed by Whistler about 1887 was owned by Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924) and sold through H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1903 (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580204). Freer bought another - a touched proof, reproduced below - from Obach & Co. two years later (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580203). Impression: K1580203

One impression was sold at auction at Sotheby's, 29 March 1892 (lot 419) and bought by 'Cross' for a modest £1.2.0. Messrs Dowdeswell owned one that went to Clarence Buckingham (1855-1913), and was eventually bequeathed by his sisters to the Art Institute of Chicago (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580202). One from the Royal Collection was acquired by Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935), and later by Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971), who gave it to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (Graphic with a link to impression #K1580206).