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Booth at a Fair

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1903.40)
Number: 257
Date: 1886
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 133 x 98 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 6
Catalogues: K.249; M.245; W.203
Impressions taken from this plate  (6)
Booth at a Fair dates from 1886. It was first listed by Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921) in 1886. 1 It was first sold on 27 July 1887. 2

If, as Wedmore suggests, the etching was done in France, then it might date from August 1886. Whistler was in Paris on 21 August and in Melun, Seine-et-Marne by the following day, where he visited George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909), who sat for the Portrait of George A. Lucas y355; Whistler spent a day or two working in the area. 3 He may have made other brief trips to France but this is the only one confirmed.

1: Wedmore 1886 A[more] (cat. no. 203).

2: Whistler to Dowdeswell, GUW #08677.

3: Randall 1979[more], p. 635.