Robert Barr |  Hunterian Art Gallery (49931) | |
| Number: | 478 | |
| Date: | 1894/1895 | |
| Medium: | etching | |
| Size: | 112 x 90 mm | |
| Signed: | no | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 1 | |
| Known impressions: | 9 | |
| Catalogues: | K.App.4; M.app.5 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (9) | ||
The plate for Robert Barr probably dates from 1894. On one impression is written, 'Robert Barr etched by Whistler at 13 Robert Street Cumberland Market in 1894' (
). Robins suggests that the copper plate was given to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) in 1894 when he lent Whistler his studio in Robert Street to paint Portrait of Robert Barr [y428]. 1
According to the Sunday Times the plate was found by Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) in his Dieppe studio in the summer of 1908. It had been 'etched but never bitten in' :
). Robins suggests that the copper plate was given to Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) in 1894 when he lent Whistler his studio in Robert Street to paint Portrait of Robert Barr [y428]. 1 According to the Sunday Times the plate was found by Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942) in his Dieppe studio in the summer of 1908. It had been 'etched but never bitten in' :
1: Anna Greutzner Robins, Walter Sickert. The Complete Writings on Art, Oxford, 2002, p. 177.
'This last Mr Sickert proceeded to do ... the plate proved to be a delightful sketch portrait of Mr Robert Barr, the novelist, by Whistler, a first proof it was my privilege to see the other day. I understand that Mr Barr remembers giving Whistler a sitting for an etching in 1894, so this, though the plate itself is neither signed nor dated, fixes the period of execution and confirms the sefl-evident authenticity.' 2
2: Sunday Times, 4 October 1908 (GUL PC 22//83).
According to Sickert the copper plate was 'unbitten' when given to him by Whistler; and it was bitten by Sickert and printed in 1908. 3 According to Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932),
3: Sickert to the Editor, The Times, London, 22 October 1908, in Robins 2002, op. cit., p. 177.
'This plate, said to have been done by Whistler in 1894, came into the possession of Mr Walter Sickert, and was bitten-in several years after Whistler's death. An edition of forty-five impressions was published by Messrs Baillie and Gardiner, in London, in 1908.' 4
4: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. App. IV).