Under Old Battersea Bridge | ||
Number: | 168 | |
Date: | 1876/1878 | |
Medium: | etching, drypoint and open bite | |
Size: | 216 x 139 mm | |
Signed: | no | |
Inscribed: | no | |
Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
No. of States: | 3 | |
Known impressions: | 24 | |
Catalogues: | K.176; M.173 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (24) |
PUBLICATION
It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.
EXHIBITIONS
It has rarely been exhibited. Impressions were shown at the Union League Club in New York in 1881, lent by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (), and two different states shown in the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club, Chicago, in 1900, lent by Avery and by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938). 9
It was also shown in a print dealer's show, at H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1903, and Messrs Brown & Philips lent an impression to the Whistler Memorial show in London in 1905. 10
It was also shown in a print dealer's show, at H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1903, and Messrs Brown & Philips lent an impression to the Whistler Memorial show in London in 1905. 10
9: New York 1881 (cat. no. 150); Chicago 1900 (cat. nos. 317, 317a). See REFERENCES : EXHIBITIONS.
10: New York 1903b (cat. no. 206); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 280).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) owned the first proof, which was sold with his collection through H. Wunderlich & Co., New York and bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1898 (). According to Howard Mansfield (1849-1938), first states were owned by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (), Freer, and himself. Kennedy listed a first state owned by Thomas Jefferson Coolidge jr (1863-1912) in 1910 (), a second (this time a worked proof) by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934), and a third, by Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) (). Theobald's impression was owned at one time by Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) and later, by Charles C. Cunningham (1910-1979) before being bought by the National Gallery of Australia (). Menpes also owned a third state, which was bought by Freer from Obach & Co. in 1904, and bequeathed with the rest of his collection to the Freer Gallery of Art (). Another first state was acquired by Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) () and given to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Cancelled impressions often remained in the album as published in 1879. They were snapped up by collectors eager to have representations of a wide range of Whistler's works, and presumably because they could check the condition of the plate when it was cancelled. Buyers included the British Museum in 1887 () and a private collector, Thomas Glen Arthur (1858-1907), also in 1887 (); Freer bought it from Knoedler & Co. in 1893 () and the Hamburger Kunsthalle bought a set from J. Littauer in 1896 (). A set owned by Alphonse Wyatt Thibaudeau (ca 1840- d.1892) was sold at auction at Sotheby's, 13 December 1889 (lot 787 or 789) and bought by Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) who exchanged it for more negotiable Whistlers with Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) ().