The Little Velvet Dress |  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (1943.3.8465) | |
| Number: | 119 | |
| Date: | 1873 | |
| Medium: | drypoint | |
| Size: | 166 x 122 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at right | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
| No. of States: | 3 | |
| Known impressions: | 27 | |
| Catalogues: | K.106; M.106; W.92 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (27) | ||
STATE
Three states are known before cancellation.
State 1
Signed with a butterfly at right, just above centre.
There are white spaces behind the figure and in front of the waist at right.
The faint trace of another sketch of the model's profile is outlined at upper right.
State 2
Several diagonal lines run to right from her hands; areas of vertical, diagonal and cross-hatched shading fill in the blank area behind the woman and extend the shading behind her; roughly vertical shading and long lines suggest the boundaries of a curtain in front of her and extend the shading in front of her face; vertical and horizontal lines indicate a dado in front of her, overlapping with the curtain.
State 3
Short, light diagonal lines shade her cheeks; close vertical shading is added in front of the woman's waist; fine horizontal lines are added in the background to left of the skirt, and extend the shadows at lower left.
In the impression reproduced by Kennedy of the final state (his second state), and reproduced below, the drypoint behind the skirt appears to have been lightly inked or worn or possibly to have been rubbed down, but this impression has not been located and the quality of the reproduction is not sufficient to identify this as another state. 6
6: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 106 II).
State 3 (cancelled)
Cancelled with nine or ten diagonal lines, widely spaced, across the figure.