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Arthur Haden

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1892.1)
Number: 66
Date: 1859
Medium: drypoint
Size: 229 x 154 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' (2-final) at lower left
Inscribed: '1869' at lower left (2-3); changed to '1859' (4)
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 31
Catalogues: K.61; M.61; T.59; W.47
Impressions taken from this plate  (31)
Etching: PK061_01
The copper plate bears the rectangular stamp of 'HUGHES & KIMBER / MANUFACTURERS/ RED LION SQUARE / FLEET STREET / LONDON'. The same stamp appears on three Thames plates of 1859 of the same size, Thames Police 053, Stevens' Boat Yard 056, Black Lion Wharf 054 and several portraits, all of 1859-1860. 7

In 1872 an exhibition at the opening of the Guildhall Library and Museum of engraved portraits from the collection of James Anderson Rose (1819-1890) included portraits by Whistler, described as 'Nine portraits etched in copper - very rare - plates destroyed'. 8 Candidates for these nine portraits include Auguste Delātre, Printer 028, Whistler with a hat 044, C. L. Drouet, Sculptor 035, Finette 061, Z. Astruc, Editor of 'L'Artiste' 036, Arthur Haden 066, Mr Mann 073, Riault (The Wood Engraver) 069 and Axenfeld 068. Other possibilities include Greenwich Pensioner 040, Bibi Valentin 034, Bibi Lalouette 033 and Fumette standing 059.

7: Z. Astruc, Editor of 'L'Artiste' 036, Whistler with a hat 044, Fumette's Bent Head 058, Venus 060, Mr Mann 073, Axenfeld 068 and Riault (The Wood Engraver) 069.

8: Cat. nos. 960-68.

The plate was certainly cancelled by the time of Whistler's bankruptcy. It was cancelled with numerous horizontal, diagonal and zigzag lines across the figure. The cancelled plate was probably among those bought at Whistler's bankruptcy sale by the Fine Art Society, London. It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879.

The plate was bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) in 1890. It was bequeathed to the Freer Gallery of Art in 1919.