The Pantheon from the Terrace, Luxembourg Gardens |  Art Institute of Chicago (1948.38) | |
| Number: | 473 | |
| Date: | 1893/1894 | |
| Medium: | etching | |
| Size: | 82 x 200 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at lower left | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 1 | |
| Known impressions: | 2 | |
| Catalogues: | K.429; M.419 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (2) | ||
The Pantheon from the Terrace, Luxembourg Gardens probably dates from 1893 or 1894. It is closely related to several similar subjects including the lithograph, The Pantheon, from the terrace of the Luxembourg Gardens [c070], as well as several etchings including
Little Terrace, Luxembourg Gardens [443],
The Little Terrace, Luxembourg Gardens, No. 2 [444],
Balustrade, Luxembourg Gardens [465] and Bébés, Jardin du Luxembourg [463].
Joseph Pennell (1860-1926) was helping Whistler to print his etchings during the summer of 1893:
'... he explained that
he wanted J. to help with his printing he was biting and printing
the last Paris plates which no one had seen. ... For weeks in the summer of 1893, either at the printing press in
the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs or at the Rue du Bac, J. was
with Whistler almost daily.' 1
1: Pennell 1921C, p. 12.
But, unfortunately: 'the ground,
which [Whistler] laid, was bad and came off, and the prints he pulled,
after he bit them as far as he could, were in many places weak.
Curiously, Whistler was afraid to re-ground them, or to allow
Lamour, the old etching material maker in Paris, to do it, though
Lamour offered to and sent Whistler and J. re-grounding rollers
for the purpose. This was in 1893, and it was not until 1900 that
he did anything with the plates ...' 2
2: Ibid, p. 80.