UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Recto, above; verso, below:

The copper plate bears the stamp of 'B. MAIRE / PLANEUR A PARIS'. This stamp has been found on only seven extant copper plates: Shipping at Liverpool [100], Sketches of Heads [138], Speke Shore [139], Battersea Morn [174], Greenhithe [173], Lindsey Houses [161] and this drypoint. The size of these copper plates is not identical but range from Battersea Morn [174] at 150 x 225 mm to 231 x 155 mm. The dates ranges from about 1867 to 1877.

Several of these plates were executed in Liverpool but The Thames towards Erith and Battersea: Dawn were both drawn on the Thames and obviously the portrait of Irving was made in London.

Whistler could have bought several plates at the same time or different occasions when visiting Paris or have had them sent to him from Paris, possibly by Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907).

The plate was cancelled with diagonal lines across the figure. The cancelled copper plate was probably among plates bought at Whistler's bankruptcy sale by the Fine Art Society, London. It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.

The copper plate was probably among those acquired from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) in exchange for lithographs by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 12 The plate was given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.