UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Murano - Glass Furnace was not published.

Murano - Glass Furnace was first exhibited in the Fine Art Society in London in 1883 and was the first entry in Whistler's catalogue, where it was twinned with a cryptic quotation from Knowledge: 'Criticism is powerless here.' 13 This implies that critics would not understand the drypoint and therefore should not comment it - or indeed on any of his work. Unforunately most critics in 1883 ignored it and the Daily News, did not attempt to understand it:

At the same time, another art critic went into raptures, not exactly about this drypoint (although Murano is mentioned in passing) but about the truth of Whistler's images of Venice:

A detail of a figure from this drypoint was reproduced in the journal Knowledge, with the comment: 'A memory from No.1, pleasingly called by Mr. Whistler a Glass Furnace, but which might be anything, from an inside room in Noah's Ark to a warm corner in Hades'! 16

Later Murano - Glass Furnace was shown at print dealer's shows, by H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, for instance, in 1883, 1898, and at Obach & Co. in London in 1903 - when an impression was bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (). 17 Another - possibly bought from Wunderlich's - was lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) to a show organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (). 18

Impressions appeared in the Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death, at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, in Paris in 1905, and, lent by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934), in London, also in 1905 (). 19

Early impressions must have been sold either while Whistler was in Venice, or in the mid-1880s - one, for instance, bought by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904), is signed with a butterfly dating from 1885/1887 (). Messrs Dowdeswell, after consulting Wedmore's catalogue of Whistler's etchings, wrote to Whistler to request impressions of a number of etchings, including this. 20 Whistler sold three impressions of 'Murano Glass Furnace' to Dowdeswell's more or less by return of post, on 16 February 1889, and another on 3 August 1889, for £5.5.0 each. 21

One of the Dowdeswell batch was almost certainly a final state of the drypoint bought by Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) (). Another - a third state - was bought by John Charles Sigismund Day (1826-1908) (); in 1906 this was with Obach & Co., in London and was bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919). Freer had already bought a fourth state from Obach's in 1903 (). Both are likely to have come originally from Dowdeswell's, and were bequeathed with the rest of his important collection to the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Another impression that may have come from Dowdeswell's was owned by Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891) and bought after his death by Edmund F. Deprez (1851-1915) of Duprez & Gutekunst for £1.18.0. 22

Whistler himself sold another impression in 1899 to H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, for a relatively high price, £10.10.0. 23 From Deprez and Wunderlich's, these impressions may have gone to important American collectors, such as Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) (), Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) (), Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) () or Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (). From these, the prints travelled either directly or through others to major American collections: the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, and the Art Institute of Chicago.