UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Salvation Army, Sandwich

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.490)
Number: 319
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 83 x 178 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 7
Catalogues: K.305; M.300; W.236
Impressions taken from this plate  (7)
Etching: PK305_01
Recto, above; verso, below.
Etching: PK305_02
The copper plate bears the maker's oval stamp: 'HUGHES & KIMBER (LIMITED) / MANUFACTURERS / LONDON E.C.' Plates of similar size, mostly from the same maker and dating from 1887, include St James's Place, Houndsditch 255, Dipping the Flag 308, Savoy Scaffolding 317, The Long Seats, Gray's Inn 283 and Tilbury 312.
The plate was cancelled with crossed diagonal lines, probably in 1891. Whistler discussed with Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) the possibility of printing one or two impressions from cancelled plates so that prospective buyers could see that no further prints were possible. Whistler's 'secretary' William Bell wrote when Kennedy visited London in June 1891: 'in accordance with his intentions expressed to you the other day, Mr Whistler has already destroyed a great number of the plates in question, and herewith sends you the proofs as an interesting fact of reference - ' 10

10: W. Bell to E.G. Kennedy, 8 June 1891, GUW #09674.

Others cancelled at this time, and in the same way, include Little Steps, Chelsea 269, Gates, City, London 280, The Dray Horse 292, Petticoat Lane 299, The Ramparts, Sandwich 324, The Tow-Path 325 and Little Nude Figure 330, Church, Amsterdam 445 and possibly Nora Quinn 364 and Jews' Quarter, Amsterdam 449.
The plate was in Whistler's studio at his death and was bequeathed to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who gave it to the University of Glasgow in 1935.