A Sketch of Shipping |  Freer Gallery of Art (1898.361) | |
| Number: | 57 | |
| Date: | 1859 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 154 x 228 mm | |
| Signed: | no | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | 'Cancelled Plates', 1879 | |
| No. of States: | 1 | |
| Known impressions: | 20 | |
| Catalogues: | K.151; M.48; T.84; W.127 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (20) | ||
A Sketch of Shipping may date from 1859. It is unfinished and difficult to date.
Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) thought it dated from about 1859. 1 The copper plate is close in size to a number of etchings dating from 1859 (Stevens' Boat Yard [56], Whistler with a hat [44], Fumette's Bent Head [58], Arthur Haden [66], Mr Mann [73]). Of these, only Stevens' Boat Yard [56] is of a similar subject, and might help to confirm the dating.
1: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 48).
However, a similar size was used for some works in the early 1870s, including several subjects done at Speke Hall near Liverpool (Mrs Leyland, Sr. [123], Sketches of Heads [138], Speke Shore [139]) and others that must date from London in the second half of the 1870s (such as Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 1 [158], Agnes [146]).
The latest possible date is 1879 when it was published with the set of Cancelled Etchings by the Fine Art Society.