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Chelsea

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1889.22)
Number: 181
Date: 1878/1879
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 133 x 207 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: Printseller's Association, 1879.
No. of States: 5
Known impressions: 66
Catalogues: K.182; M.179; W.148
Impressions taken from this plate  (66)

TECHNIQUE

Chelsea was originally done in pure etching, and drypoint additions were made from the third state on.

PRINTING

Mansfield stated that Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) had written '1st State - only two taken.', and 'Second trial from the plate.' on impressions that were bought later by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), and had also written on the last print in the sequence, '"Third trial printed by artist and impression set off," and "3rd state, set off while wet." ' 7 These inscriptions seem to have been mostly removed although the latter is partly visible on an impression of the third state ().

7: Mansfield 1909[more] (cat. no. 179).

One of the first impressions was in black ink on laid paper with an 'IV' countermark (), as was the impression of the third state just mentioned (), which was on paper taken from a book with an old Dutch inscription. Papers include sheets of off-white laid paper removed from a book, with sewing holes visible, used for proofs of the first and second state (, ).
Two impressions of the fifth state are on ivory laid paper from a ledger with ruled orangey-red lines (, ). Others - stamped by the Printsellers Association - are on similar lined paper (, ). A variety of other papers used for the fifth state include other laid papers, cream (), 'antique' (pre-1800) cream () and an off-white laid with eagle watermark (); ivory 'antique' laid paper darkened to cream (); and dark cream laid with the watermark of 'GR' and Strasbourg Lily (). One impression in dark brown ink was printed on a stiff, card-like cream wove paper ().
Late impressions, as published in Choice Examples of Modern Etchings, E. Parsons, London, 1889, were on cream wove Japanned or Asian paper (, , and probably and ).
Cancelled impression are also in black ink, printed on thick cream wove, possibly simile Japan () and buff wove ().