Stables |  Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la photographie (Rés EC 123 Folio 3) | |
| Number: | 228 | |
| Date: | 1879/1880 | |
| Medium: | drypoint | |
| Size: | 167 x 236 mm | |
| Signed: | no | |
| Inscribed: | no | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 3 | |
| Known impressions: | 2 | |
| Catalogues: | K.225; M.222; W.198 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (2) | ||
TECHNIQUE
The plate was executed in pure drypoint.
PRINTING
It is very rare: only four impressions are recorded of which only two have been located ( and ). The '1st proof', which has not been located, appears to have been worked on in pen and ink, or else printed with extreme retroussage, suggesting developments to the figures (). The next proof is less rich and inky and shows considerable but uneven burr ().
One impression of the final state, printed in brown ink, is pale, with uneven tone () while another, in black, is very roughly inked ().
In 1931 Nathaniel Sparks (1880-1956) recorded printing '3 Proofs ... A slight plate possibly a first state & never printed: paper from his book' - meaning on paper from Whistler's collection - at the request of Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). 10 These impressions have not been located for sure - although it is just possible that they are the impressions of the final state mentioned above, one of which is signed with a rather odd 'butterfly' ().
10: Note dated 18 June 1931, (Notebook f.3); see Martin Hopkinson, 'Nathaniel Sparks's Printing of Whistler's Etchings', Print Quarterly, 1999, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 340-341, 349.