UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Home > The Catalogue > Browse > Subjects > Etchings > Etching

Axenfeld

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.304)
Number: 68
Date: 1860
Medium: drypoint
Size: 230 x 153 mm
Signed: 'Whistler.' at lower left (2-final)
Inscribed: '1860.' at lower left (2-final)
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 6
Known impressions: 31
Catalogues: K.64; M.64; T.52; W.61
Impressions taken from this plate  (31)
Etching: PK064_01
The copper plate bears the maker's rectangular stamp: 'HUGHES AND KIMBER / MANUFACTURERS / RED LION PASSAGE / FLEET STREET / LONDON'. It is similar in size to several plates including Z. Astruc, Editor of 'L'Artiste' 036, Venus 060 and Lady in an armchair 091.
The plate was cancelled with numerous crossed diagonal lines across the figure. It was certainly cancelled by 1879, and possibly by 1872, when 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'. 11 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.

11: Cat. nos. 960-68.

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 copper plate was probably among those acquired from Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851), by Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who explained, 'A number of these plates were returned to me after the artist's death by Robert Dunthorne of Vigo Street, London in exchange for a number of lithographic proofs'. 12 The plate was later given by Miss Philip to the University of Glasgow in 1935.

12: Note by R. Birnie Philip, inserted in the album, Hunterian Art Gallery.