UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

The Japanese Dress

Impression: Library of Congress
Library of Congress
(FP-XIX-W576, no. 337)
Number: 371
Date: 1887
Medium: etching
Size: 100 x 68 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 2
Catalogues: K.337; M.335
Impressions taken from this plate  (2)

PUBLICATION

The Japanese Dress was not published.

EXHIBITIONS

It was very rare and rarely exhibited. An impression was shown at a print dealer's, H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898. 8 No other exhibition in Whistler's time is known.

8: New York 1898 (cat. no. 280).

SALES & COLLECTORS

The London print dealer, Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832), bought impressions from Whistler on 12 December 1887 for £5.5.0 and in February 1888 for £4.4.0. 9 It is not known who bought them; only two impressions are known, and one of those handled by McLean may be the one now in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Graphic with a link to impression #K3370103).

9: GUW #13017, #13018.

The price then went down even further, and H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, bought one impression for £3.0.0 in 1896, and sold it by 1900, possibly to John Caldwell (fl. 1887-1907); it was later owned by Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937), and finally acquired by the Library of Congress, Washington DC (Graphic with a link to impression #K3370102).