UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Doorway, Gray's Inn

Impression: Colby College Museum of Art, Maine
Colby College Museum of Art, Maine
(2013.335)
Number: 289
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 96 x 134 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 2
Catalogues: K.300; M.294
Impressions taken from this plate  (2)
Etching: PK300_01 (plate)
The copper plate is the same or very close in size to several other etchings of this period (Petticoat Lane [299], The Young Tree [285], Doorway, Sandwich [323], The Landing Stage, Cowes [309] and Fish Women, Ostend [349]). Of these, only Fish Women, Ostend [349] bears a plate stamp, that of Hughes & Kimber. Most of Whistler's plates of the period - 60 per cent - were acquired from Hughes & Kimber. However, it is possible that Doorway, Gray's Inn was part of a batch acquired elsewhere, either in London or Paris.
The plate was in Whistler's studio at his death and was bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who gave it to the University of Glasgow in 1935. It was cancelled posthumously with a diagonal line across the lower left corner.