Merton Villa, Chelsea | ||
Number: | 381 | |
Date: | 1888 | |
Medium: | etching | |
Size: | 153 x 230 mm | |
Signed: | butterfly at left | |
Inscribed: | 'to Trix - / Merton Villa / Chelsea' at lower left | |
Set/Publication: | no | |
No. of States: | 1 | |
Known impressions: | 2 | |
Catalogues: | K.277; M.273 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (2) |
PUBLICATION
It was never published.
EXHIBITIONS
Merton Villa, Chelsea was a very personal and rare etching. It was little known and rarely exhibited. Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) lent what he called the first proof to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (
). 11

11: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 247).
Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent an impression to both the Boston and London Whistler Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death (
). In addition it was shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904. 12

12: New York 1904a (cat. no. 322); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 298); New York 1904a (cat. no. 322).
SALES & COLLECTORS
This is extremely rare. One impression was sold by Whistler to H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, for £10.10.0 on 29 June 1888 and another, at the same price, to the Fine Art Society, London, on 18 December 1888. 13 Wunderlich's sold their impression to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) a month later (
). It had particularly strong associations for Freer, who was in frequent correspondence with Beatrice Whistler (1857-1896), who is almost certainly the woman in the etching, and handled many of Whistler's print sales.

In 1903, shortly before Whistler's death, David A. Kennedy (fl.1895-1915) asked Whistler for another impression, but none was forthcoming. 14 The only one still in Whistler's studio at his death was bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) who gave it to the University of Glasgow (
).

14: 27 March 1903, GUW #07340.