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Black Lion Wharf

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.271)
Number: 54
Date: 1859
Medium: etching
Size: 153 x 229 mm
Signed: 'Whistler' at lower right
Inscribed: '1859.' at lower right
Set/Publication: 'Thames Set', 1871
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 104
Catalogues: K.42; M.41; T.35; W.40
Impressions taken from this plate  (104)

STATE

Four states are known before cancellation.

State 1

Impression: K0420101
Signed 'Whistler, 1859.' at lower right.
The composition is complete.
The furled sail, partly indicated on the barge at the right, is white; the entrance to the warehouses further to the right is not shaded; at left are the faint outlines of a third barge, beyond the two barges in the foreground.

State 2

Impression: K0420203
The sail on the barge at the right is shaded; the entrance to the warehouses further to the right is shaded; the barge at left behind the two barges in the foreground has been removed (though traces remain); the shadow in the upper centre, just to left of a chimney, is darkened, as is the shadow above the signboard for 'St. ANDREWS.'; there is a slightly curved vertical scratch down from the bollard to right of the seated man in the foreground.

State 3

Impression: K0420217
A conspicuous triangular black mark near the lower left corner has been partly removed; the vertical scratch from the bollard to right of the seated man has been partly removed; spots of foul biting appear at lower right of the bollard, in the water behind the foreground barges at the left, and elsewhere; the faint drypoint lines of clouds in the sky at upper left have been removed or faded.

State 4

Impression: K0420302
The triangular black mark near the lower left corner has been removed; the spot of foul biting below the bollard has been stopped out; the foul biting in the water varies in visibility according to inking.
In early impressions of this state, faint marks of burnishing are apparent around the masts at upper left (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #K0420334, Graphic with a link to impression #K0420332).
Published in the 'Thames Set' in this state.

State 4 (cancelled)

Impression: K0420403
Cancelled with four vertical lines and two diagonal lines running from corner to corner.