UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Old Battersea Bridge, No. 2

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1917.494)
Number: 275
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 128 x 178 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.311; M.305; W.225
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)
Etching: PK311_01
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK311_02
Whistler listed it as 'Old Battersea Bridge No. 2', giving the size (which helps to identify it) as '7 x 5' (Whistler often gives width in inches before height). 10 The copper plate bears the maker's stamp of 'HUGHES & KIMBER (LIMITED) / MANUFACTURERS / LONDON E.C.' and is the same make and size as several other copper plates of the same date, 1887.

10: List, [August 1887/1888], GUW #13233.

Copper plates of the same size, mostly from the same maker, include other London scenes (i.e. Melon Shop, Houndsditch 355) and plates showing Queen Victoria's Jubilee (i.e. Troopships 307), as well as The Barrow - Quartier des Marolles, Brussels 346 and studies of models (i.e. Cameo, No. 1 (Mother and Child) 459), most of which date from 1887.
The copper plate of Old Battersea Bridge, No. 2 remained in the artist's estate and was bequeathed to his sister-in-law, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958). It was cancelled posthumously with a diagonal line at left. She gave it to the University of Glasgow in 1935.