UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Greenwich Pensioner

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.259)
Number: 40
Date: 1859
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 99 x 136 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' at lower right
Inscribed: 'Greenwich - 1859.' at lower right
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 34
Catalogues: K.34; M.33; T.15; W.32
Impressions taken from this plate  (34)
Etching: PK034_01
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK034_02
The copper plate bears on the verso the maker's stamp of 'HUGHES & KIMBER / MANUFACTURERS / RED LION PASSAGE / FLEET STREET / LONDON', who were Whistler's favourite suppliers. It was cancelled with fine zig-zag lines across the figure. It was cancelled by 1876. 10

10: See James Anderson Rose (1819-1890), auction, Sotheby's, London, 30 June 1876 (lot 663).

The cancelled copper plate was probably among plates bought at Whistler's bankruptcy sale by the Fine Art Society, London. It was published in the set of Cancelled Plates by the F.A.S. in 1879.
The copper plate was probably among those acquired later from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851), by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), in exchange for lithographs. The plate was given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.