Chelsea | ||
Number: | 181 | |
Date: | 1878/1879 | |
Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
Size: | 133 x 207 mm | |
Signed: | butterfly at lower right | |
Inscribed: | no | |
Set/Publication: | Printseller's Association, 1879. | |
No. of States: | 5 | |
Known impressions: | 66 | |
Catalogues: | K.182; M.179; W.148 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (66) |
TECHNIQUE
Chelsea was originally done in pure etching, and drypoint additions were made from the third state on.
PRINTING
Mansfield stated that Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) had written '1st State - only two taken.', and 'Second trial from the plate.' on impressions that were bought later by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), and had also written on the last print in the sequence, '"Third trial printed by artist and impression set off," and "3rd state, set off while wet." ' 7 These inscriptions seem to have been mostly removed although the latter is partly visible on an impression of the third state (
).

7: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 179).
One of the first impressions was in black ink on laid paper with an 'IV' countermark (
), as was the impression of the third state just mentioned (
), which was on paper taken from a book with an old Dutch inscription. Papers include sheets of off-white laid paper removed from a book, with sewing holes visible, used for proofs of the first and second state (
,
).




Two impressions of the fifth state are on ivory laid paper from a ledger with ruled orangey-red lines (
,
). Others - stamped by the Printsellers Association - are on similar lined paper (
,
). A variety of other papers used for the fifth state include other laid papers, cream (
), 'antique' (pre-1800) cream (
) and an off-white laid with eagle watermark (
); ivory 'antique' laid paper darkened to cream (
); and dark cream laid with the watermark of 'GR' and Strasbourg Lily (
). One impression in dark brown ink was printed on a stiff, card-like cream wove paper (
).









