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Merton Villa, Chelsea

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1888.18)
Number: 381
Date: 1888
Medium: etching
Size: 153 x 230 mm
Signed: butterfly at left
Inscribed: 'to Trix - / Merton Villa / Chelsea' at lower left
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 2
Catalogues: K.277; M.273
Impressions taken from this plate  (2)

PUBLICATION

It was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

Merton Villa, Chelsea was a very personal and rare etching. It was little known and rarely exhibited. Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) lent what he called the first proof to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (Graphic with a link to impression #K2770103). 11

11: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 247).

Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent an impression to both the Boston and London Whistler Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death (Graphic with a link to impression #). In addition it was shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904. 12

12: New York 1904a (cat. no. 322); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 298); New York 1904a (cat. no. 322).

SALES & COLLECTORS

This is extremely rare. One impression was sold by Whistler to H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, for £10.10.0 on 29 June 1888 and another, at the same price, to the Fine Art Society, London, on 18 December 1888. 13 Wunderlich's sold their impression to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) a month later (Graphic with a link to impression #K2770103). It had particularly strong associations for Freer, who was in frequent correspondence with Beatrice Whistler (1857-1896), who is almost certainly the woman in the etching, and handled many of Whistler's print sales.

13: GUW #13052, #12999.

In 1903, shortly before Whistler's death, David A. Kennedy (fl.1895-1915) asked Whistler for another impression, but none was forthcoming. 14 The only one still in Whistler's studio at his death was bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) who gave it to the University of Glasgow (Graphic with a link to impression #K2770104).

14: 27 March 1903, GUW #07340.