UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

J.H. Woods' Fruit Shop, Chelsea

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1888.20)
Number: 327
Date: 1887/1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 98 x 133 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.265; M.261
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)

PUBLICATION

J. H. Woods' Fruit Shop, Chelsea was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

It was rarely exhibited. It was shown in New York by H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 and 1903. Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) lent his impression to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2650202). 11

After Whistler's death an impression was exhibited at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, probably lent by Freer, and John Charles Sigismund Day (1826-1908) lent one to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905. 12

11: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 248); see REFERENCES : EXHIBITIONS.

12: New York 1904a (cat. no. 326); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 378).

SALES & COLLECTORS

The price started at £8.8.0. The first sale recorded was on 29 June 1888 to the New York print dealers H. Wunderlich & Co. and this impression was immediately sold to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K2650202). Whistler sold Wunderlich's another on 31 December, and a third possibly in 1894 (though this is not confirmed in Wunderlich's accounts). 13 Wunderlich's also may have sold one by 1900 for £7.7.0 and another in 1901 for £6.6.0 (including Wunderlich's discount as Whistler's agent) but these might be duplicate records. 14 It is likely that one of these was bought by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), but his impression has not been located (Graphic with a link to impression #K2650201).

Other art dealers bought impressions direct from the artist. Messrs Dowdeswell took one and then returned it. 15 Whistler sold one to the Fine Art Society, London, on 18 December 1888, and another London print dealer, Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) bought one at the usual rate of £8.8.0 in 1902 and another in June 1903 (just before Whistler's death) for £10.10.0. 16

In 1908 Obach & Co. sold an impression to the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, for £12.0.0 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2650204). Wunderlich's, Knoedler & Co. and F. Keppel & Co. handled an impression of the third state eventually bought by Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) and given to the National Gallery of Art (Graphic with a link to impression #K2650203).

13: GUW #13052, #13054, #07271; see also #07289.

14: 'x 196', 6 April 1900, GUW #07322; '8', 16 April 1901, #07330.

15: W. Dowdeswell, 19 December 1888, GUW #00911.

16: GUW #12999; Whistler to Dunthorne, 24 December 1902, GUW #13040.