UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Home > The Catalogue > Browse > Etching

The Little Wheelwright's

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(46892)
Number: 261
Date: 1886
Medium: etching
Size: 66 x 98 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 13
Catalogues: K.245; M.242
Impressions taken from this plate  (13)

PUBLICATION

The Little Wheelwright’s was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime. It was first shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904. 8

8: New York 1904a (cat. no. 294).

SALES & COLLECTORS

There is no record of printing or sales of The Little Wheelwright’s by Whistler. He sold two Dordrecht etchings in November 1886, but none under this title. 9

There is no record of anyone acquiring this print before 1904, when Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought one from Obach & Co. in London (Graphic with a link to impression #K2450104). One that was definitely printed by Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) was acquired by Charles Deering (1852-1927) possibly about the same time (Graphic with a link to impression #K2450102). Menpes himself gave one to Gertrude Elizabeth Campbell (Lady Colin Campbell) (1857-1911); a label on the old frame was inscribed 'Etching by Whistler given to me by Menpes.' and signed 'Vera Campbell' (her nom de plume from 1888 on was 'Vera Tsaritsyn'). This was then sold at auction at Sotheby's, 28 July 1913, and bought by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) for Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (Graphic with a link to impression #K2450103).

9: Whistler to Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832), [1 November 1886], GUW #13010.