UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Old Battersea Bridge, No. 2

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.494)
Number: 275
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 128 x 178 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.311; M.305; W.225
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)
Etching: PK311_01 (plate)
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK311_02 (plate)
Whistler listed it as 'Old Battersea Bridge No. 2', giving the size (which helps to identify it) as '7 x 5' (Whistler often gives width in inches before height). 10 The copper plate bears the maker's stamp of 'HUGHES & KIMBER (LIMITED) / MANUFACTURERS / LONDON E.C.' and is the same make and size as several other copper plates of the same date, 1887.

10: List, [August 1887/1888], GUW #13233.

Copper plates of the same size, mostly from the same maker, include other London scenes (i.e. Melon Shop, Houndsditch [355]) and plates showing Queen Victoria's Jubilee (i.e. Troopships [307]), as well as The Barrow - Quartier des Marolles, Brussels [346] and studies of models (i.e. Cameo, No. 1 (Mother and Child) [459]), most of which date from 1887.
The copper plate of Old Battersea Bridge, No. 2 remained in the artist's estate and was bequeathed to his sister-in-law, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). It was cancelled posthumously with a diagonal line at left. She gave it to the University of Glasgow in 1935.