UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Mme Pelletier, Blanchisserie, Paris

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1904.16)
Number: 481
Date: 1897/1898
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 182 x 151 mm
Signed: butterfly at right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 1
Catalogues: K.438; M.438
Impressions taken from this plate  (1)
Etching: PK438_01
Recto, above; verso, below:
Etching: PK438_02
The copper plate bears the oval maker's stamp: 'C. SERVANT / PLANEUR / 45, B DES GDS AUGUSTINS'. This is found on a small group of etching plates, namely Confections pour Dames 475, Mme Pelletier, Blanchisserie, Paris 481, Café Corazza, Paris 484, Antony's Print Shop, Rue de Seine 477, Polichinelle, Jardin du Luxembourg 467, Boulevard Poissonière, Paris 483, The Band, Luxembourg Gardens 466, Under the Statue, Luxembourg Gardens 464 (all of which date from 1894 or later in the 1890s), and Flaming Forge 490 and Sleeping Child, Ajaccio 488 (both of which date from 1901). It is the same size as The Band, Luxembourg Gardens 466, which is known only from the copper plate.
The envelope containing the copper plate of Mme Pelletier, Blanchisserie, Paris contains a note of the title, and also an older note on a label pasted on the envelope, which reads 'Blanchisseuse "Pelletier" To be destroyed'; the last phrase was overwritten in ink, 'To be destroyed / cleaned off.' This note dates from Whistler's life-time, but the order was not carried out. 9

9: Note on label pasted on envelope, Hunterian Art Gallery.

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. It was cancelled posthumously with a diagonal line across the lower left corner.