Etchings Institutions search term: royal collection
Speke Hall: The Avenue |  Hunterian Art Gallery (46768) | |
| Number: | 101 | |
| Date: | 1870-1878 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 228 x 152 mm | |
| Signed: | 'Whistler' at lower right (1-12); butterfly lower left (11-12); both removed (13-final) | |
| Inscribed: | '1870. / Speke Hall.' at lower right | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 14 | |
| Known impressions: | 22 | |
| Catalogues: | K.96; M.95; W.86 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (22) | ||
PUBLICATION
EXHIBITIONS
Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) lent what he called a 'trial proof' (
) and a later state, 'Figure changed and work added 1870' () to the Union League Club in New York in 1881. 16
Impressions were for sale in print dealers' shows in New York, with H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 and 1903, and at Obach & Co. in London, also in 1903, where first and second states were on view. Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought one from Wunderlich's in 1898 (
). 17
Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) lent one to an exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (
). 18 Another was probably lent by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) to the first Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1902. 19
After Whistler's death, impressions were exhibited in the Whistler Memorial Exhibitions in New York, Boston, Paris and London. King Edward VII lent an impression to the Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905 (
). 20
15: London Grosvenor 1879 (cat. no. 270).
16: New York 1881 (cat. nos. 116, 117).
17: New York 1898 (cat. no. 81); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
18: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 81).
19: Philadelphia 1902 (cat. no. 947).
20: New York 1904a (cat. no. 89); Boston 1904 (cat. nos. 68, 69); Paris Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 328); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 86).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Others were sold to Colnaghi's (possibly
), South Kensington Museum (now the V&A - but this is no longer in the collection and must have been returned) and the Royal Library, Windsor for £4.4.0 each from 1877-1878. The latter was sold from the Royal Collection shortly after the Whistler Memorial Exhibition of 1905 (). 22 A newspaper reported : 23: Unidentified press-cutting, GUL PC3/21.
Several of the earliest proofs were acquired by Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891). After his death, an impression of the first state from his collection fetched the high price of £9.12.0 and a 'first trial proof', £8.8.0, (both bought by the London print dealer Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851)), and a 'second trial proof' (probably
), was bought by Deprez & Gutekunst for £4.15.0. 26 Five years later an impression from the collection of the late Mrs Edward Fisher of Abbotsbury, Newton Abbot was sold at Christie's for £2.18.0, bought by yet another print dealer, Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) of F. Keppel & Co., New York. 27
Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought an impression of the third state from the collection of Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) through H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 (). 24: T. Way to Whistler, 12 February 1880, GUW #06080.
) - so the Hunterian Art Gallery, recipients of his estate, had to buy their own example, a slightly later impression of the fifth state, from P. & D. Colnaghi in 1967 (, reproduced below).
); Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904), bought about 1878 (, ); Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) by 1900 (); Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938) and Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) (); W. B. Dickerman (1846-1923) (); Clarence Buckingham (1855-1913) (); Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) (); Charles Deering (1852-1927) (); Theodore de Witt (dates unknown), Seward Prosser (fl. 1924) and Albert Henry Wiggin (1868-1951) (); Margaret Selkirk Watson Parker (1867-1936) (). Later collectors included Lessing Julius Rosenwald (1891-1971) ().