The Hangman's House, Tours |  Freer Gallery of Art (1906.124) | |
| Number: | 393 | |
| Date: | 1888 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 135 x 99 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at lower left | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 3 | |
| Known impressions: | 6 | |
| Catalogues: | K.376; M.376 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (6) | ||
The Hangman's House, Tours dates from September 1888.
Whistler and his wife were staying at 14 Rue de la Scellerie in Tours on their honeymoon between 15 and 27 September 1888. The signature, with Whistler's butterfly combined with Beatrice's 'trefoil' monogram ('BP' for Beatrice Philip), dates from immediately after their marriage.
Whistler wrote to Rennell Rodd describing his pleasure in 'this most lovely old town in the "Garden of France"!':
'I wonder if you know this most delightful part of the world - Not an Englishman in the whole place! The town itself filled with wonderful bits of Renaissance, and the environs studded with the most exquisite Chateaux, and we idle about from one to the other sketching or lazily looking on as the mood takes us - and always in the sun of an endless summer!' 1
1: Whistler to James Rennell Rodd (1858-1941), [14/22 September 1888?], GUW #05347.