The Traghetto, No. 2 |  Hunterian Art Gallery (46810) | |
| Number: | 233 | |
| Date: | 1880 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 243 x 307 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at lower left (1-3); replaced with a butterfly further up (4-final) | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | 'First Venice Set', 1880 | |
| No. of States: | 9 | |
| Known impressions: | 60 | |
| Catalogues: | K.191; M.188; W.156 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (60) | ||
The copper plate has no maker's mark. It is close in size to the plate for The Dyer [192], and a little bigger than The Garden [194]. It may have been made for Whistler in Venice. 11 It was published in Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (the 'First Venice Set') by the Fine Art Society, London, in 1880.
11: Getscher 1970
It was cancelled first with two large crosses and then with a stinging butterfly, right across the image, some time between 1889 and 1892.
Frederick Goulding (1842-1909) met Whistler about 1885 and Whistler visited his print workshop :
'He used occasionally to
come in to prove a plate and a good many of the Venice plates
were defaced in my studio (with the heaviest needles I could
find him), and a couple of proofs were taken with the scratches
on. I never printed an edition with him ... I think he knew that I was always delighted to give him
any help I could; but yet he was careful to bring me a proof,
now and again, that he thought I should like. I remember he
insisted on the Fine Art Society giving me a proof of one of the
Venice plates, because I lacquered the plates when they were
defaced. He said:
"I have told them they must let you choose
a proof, so you must go up and choose one." I did, one of the
best proofs of The Traghetto I know!' 12
12: Pennell 1908, vol. 1, p. 283.
The cancelled plate was exhibited by the print dealer Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) in Liverpool in 1893, and was then for sale for £26.5.0. 13
13: Liverpool 1893 (cat. no. 2).
The plate was eventually bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1902 and is now in the Freer Gallery of Art. 14
14: Acc. No. 1902.134.