UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The Unsafe Tenement was published in the Douze eaux-fortes d'après Nature (Twelve Etchings from Nature ) - the 'French Set' - in 1858, first as The Old Farm and then as The Unsafe Tenement.

As part of a published set, The Unsafe Tenement became a fairly well-known print. It was first shown in an exhibition of the work of contemporary painters at The Hague in 1863. 15

An impression was shown in Whistler's one-man show in London in 1874, and was praised by the critic of The Builder : '"The Parasol," "The Miser," and the "Old Farm" may be mentioned as showing genius and interest : the last named is a masterly study of an old picturesque building.' 16 Another impression was shown with the collection of James Anderson Rose (1819-1890) in a travelling show in Liverpool and elsewhere later in the same year. 17

In America one was shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1879 and two at the Union League Club in New York in 1881, the latter lent by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904). They were entitled 'The Dangerous Habitation' and described as the first 'Trial proof, with figure of a woman. The only impression.' and 'With woman removed, etc.' (, ). 18

Impressions appeared in print dealer's shows, particularly at H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 - which were bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (, ), and 1903, and with Keppel & Co. (1902) in New York, and Obach & Co. in London in 1903, where a first and second state were shown. 19 Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) lent an impression to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 () and Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1902. 20

Other impressions were shown in the Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death, including those at the Grolier Club in New York and the Copley Society exhibition in Boston in 1904. King Edward VII lent a 'French Set' including this etching to the London Memorial show in 1905. 21

Thomas de Kay Winans (1820-1878) bought Whistler's etchings including The Unsafe Tenement () in the summer of 1859 through Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910), to whom he wrote on 20 June: 'I enclose two drafts on Liverpool amounting to £63 sterling and as requested by you, for the etchings - they arrived in good order and are considered very fine, doing Jemmy great credit'. 22 This was given by his descendants to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which also received one as a gift from William Loring Andrews (1837-1927) in 1883 ().

On 1 January 1861 Haden sold 16 prints to what was then the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) for £10.10.0, and in addition presented the museum with a complete 'French Set', as printed by Auguste Delâtre (1822-1907) including this etching, recorded as 'The Old Farm' (). 23

The British Museum bought one third state from Philippe Burty (1830-1890) in 1866 () and another from Edmund Thomas (1842-1883) in 1872 () and acquired a second state in 1885 (). William Loring Andrews (1837-1927) gave a third state to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1883 ().

Burty's collection went to auction in 1876, when the 'first state with the woman sweeping instead of the pitchfork' and second state 'on India paper', were sold to the print dealer, Hogarth, for £3.12.0 and £3.17.0. 24 These were reasonable prices: second states 'with the pitchfork' from the collection of John W. Wilson (dates unknown), were bought by the London print dealers Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) for £2.0.0 and Messrs Dowdeswell for £3.3.0 at Sotheby's in 1887. Over the next few years prices were low. A print from the 'Collection of Engravings & Drawings, Formed by the late George William Reid, Esq' sold to B. F. Stevens for only £1.12.0 in 1890, and one from 'a fine and almost complete set of the Etchings of James McN. Whistler' owned by the late Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891), sold in 1892 for £1.1.0. 25

At the William Drake (1817-1890) sale in 1892, the New York print dealer Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) paid £1.8.0 for a 'second state on India paper' but the London print dealers, Colnaghi's bought what they must have considered a more interesting impression, described as 'after the standing woman was replaced by the pitch-fork', for £6.5.0. 26 That price is more like what the entire 'French Set' sometimes fetched at auction. A complete set from the C. W. Hope collection was bought by the print dealers, Colnaghi's, for £6.0.0 in 1894. 27

Prices remained low, but variable - at Christie's in 1897, a lot that included The Unsafe Tenement and another etching from the collection of R. Beavis fetched only £1.2.0, while a 'second state, before the sky was removed', the property of Mrs Edward Fisher of Abbotsbury, Newton Abbot, was bought by Keppel for £3.5.0. 28

In 1909 Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) listed first states as being in the collections of himself, Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) () and Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (), and second states owned by himself, Freer (, ) and Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) (). 29 Freer's impressions came originally from the collection of Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) and were bought through Wunderlich's in 1898; Mansfield's have not been located. Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) and F. Keppel & Co. sold impressions to Freer (), gave one to the Metropolitan in 1917 () and to the Cleveland Museum of Art, in 1918 ().

Other early collectors included Charles Sydenham Haden (1822-1898) (); Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) (); Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (); Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) (); Otto J. Schneider (); James A. McCallum (1862-1948) (); Guy John Fenton Knowles (1879-1959) () and Pauline Kohlsaat Palmer (1882-1956) ().

Marie v. Gomperz (1870-1940) gave an impression to the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden, 1904 (). One acquired by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich in 1904 was destroyed during the war, in 1944 ().Albert Henry Wiggin (1868-1951) gave one to the Boston Public Library (). The Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, bought one from Obach & Co. in 1908, for £5.0.0 ().