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The Hangman's House, Tours

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1906.124)
Number: 393
Date: 1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 135 x 99 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 6
Catalogues: K.376; M.376
Impressions taken from this plate  (6)
The Hangman's House, Tours dates from September 1888.
Whistler and his wife were staying at 14 Rue de la Scellerie in Tours on their honeymoon between 15 and 27 September 1888. The signature, with Whistler's butterfly combined with Beatrice's 'trefoil' monogram ('BP' for Beatrice Philip), dates from immediately after their marriage.
Etching: c_K376_08
Whistler wrote to Rennell Rodd describing his pleasure in 'this most lovely old town in the "Garden of France"!':
'I wonder if you know this most delightful part of the world - Not an Englishman in the whole place! The town itself filled with wonderful bits of Renaissance, and the environs studded with the most exquisite Chateaux, and we idle about from one to the other sketching or lazily looking on as the mood takes us - and always in the sun of an endless summer!' 1
Other Tours etchings include Courtyard, Rue P. L. Courier, Tours 391, Rue des Bons Enfants, Tours 392, The Hôtel de la Croix Blanche 395, Little Market Place, Tours 389 and The Market Place, Tours 388.