Flaming Forge |  Hunterian Art Gallery (54936) | |
| Number: | 490 | |
| Date: | 1901 | |
| Medium: | etching | |
| Size: | 192 x 154 mm | |
| Signed: | butterfly at left | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 1 | |
| Known impressions: | 16 | |
| Catalogues: | K.-; M.-; T.-; W.- | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (16) | ||
TECHNIQUE
It is an etching, drawn with rather tentative broken outlines, fine shading and delicate cross-hatching.
Whistler drew several studies for the composition in a sketchbook: The Flaming Forge, Ajaccio m1678 and r.: The Forge; v.: Smiths, Ajaccio m1679, recto and verso. The first of these contains all the elements of the composition, except that the dog is standing beside the mules, and there appears to be a table on the opposite side.
r.: The Forge; v.: Smiths, Ajaccio m1679.
The drawings show radically different shading of the interior, one, reproduced above, being shaded extremely softly, and the other, shown below, with long lines of diagonal shading. The etching itself has a rich, dark interlace of cross-hatched lines.
The Flaming Forge, Ajaccio m1678.
Although few such detailed studies for etchings have survived, this shows that it was a method used by Whistler at times. Small sketches and sketchbooks are easily lost, and the survival of two such sketchbooks and many drawings from Ajaccio probably reflects their date (1901, only two years before Whistler's death).
PRINTING
No impression printed by Whistler has been located. 25 impressions - most printed in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper - were printed and signed on the verso by Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956). According to Sparks, they were 'Printed on his own paper', that is, Whistler's paper. 8 One is in dark brown ink on wove paper (). Several are on a variety of watermarked laid papers, Pro Patria (, ,
), Foolscap (, ), 'Fellows' () and 'HS' ().
8: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340, 347, 352.
Sparks noted that 'One of them has a large smudge of Black on the top corner where burr was left where his vice held the plate -' ; this mark is noticeable in one impression, reproduced above (). Sparks added that 'the others have a row of 6 dots remains of the vice mark after the burr was removed' and this is indeed the case in most impressions (i.e. ). 9
9: Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 347, 352.
They are printed with a margin of about 40 mm, rather than being trimmed to the platemark as Whistler would have done. Thus there is no intent to deceive a purchaser into thinking these were printed by Whistler. Both the paper and slight variations of tone in the printing vary what was on the whole a technically proficient and consistent print run.