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Château d'Amboise

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1889.11)
Number: 431
Date: 1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 110 x 68 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 2
Catalogues: K.393; M.393
Impressions taken from this plate  (2)

KEYWORD

bridge, chateau, garden, landscape, Renaissance, terrace, tree, tower.

TITLE

Variations in the title are as follows:

'The Chateau of Amboise (French Plates)' (1887/1888, Whistler). 1
'Chateau d'Amboise' (1890/1892, Beatrice Whistler (1857-1896)). 2
'Château Amboise' (1902, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932)). 3

Beatrice Whistler's title 'Château d'Amboise' (with added circumflex) is preferred to the mixture of English and French in Whistler's earlier title.

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

2: List, [1890/1892], GUW #12715.

3: Kennedy 1902[more] (cat. no. 342).

DESCRIPTION

A view taken from a high viewpoint looking down on a broad terrace, with a glimpse of a river and distant landscape far below on the left, and trees in a walled garden to right. At the far end of the terrace is the château, with a round tower projecting at the left, and the main building, with smaller corner turrets and steep roofs with decorative dormer windows and chimneys, to the right. The sky is cloudy.

SITE

Amboise, a town in the Loire valley, France.
A wood engraving by Carbonneau after Karl Girardet of the Château during the stay of Abd-El-Kadr [ i.e. 1852] shows the left end of Whistler's view. 4

Whistler's view of the château is virtually the same as the 'Terrasse, anciens jardins de Pacello da Mercogliano' illustrated by Michel Melot. 5

4: Louis Augustin de Bosseboeuf, La Touraine Historique et Monumentale. Amboise. Le Château. La Ville et Le Canton, Tours, 1897, p. 216.

5: M. Melot, Chateaux en Pays de Loire, Geneva, 1988, p. 67.