Etchings Institutions search term: obach
Chelsea Wharf |  Freer Gallery of Art (1905.163) | |
| Number: | 97 | |
| Date: | 1863 | |
| Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
| Size: | 93 x 192 mm | |
| Signed: | 'Whistler.' at lower right (1-2); butterfly at lower right (2) | |
| Inscribed: | '1863 -' at lower right | |
| Set/Publication: | no | |
| No. of States: | 2 | |
| Known impressions: | 12 | |
| Catalogues: | K.89; M.89; T.75; W.81 | |
| Impressions taken from this plate (12) | ||
PUBLICATION
EXHIBITIONS
) 10
Thereafter it was not much exhibited, though impressions appeared at H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898 (bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919)), and at Obach & Co. in London in 1903. An impression was lent by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) to a show organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900. 11
Impressions were also shown in the Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death. Freer lent an impression (
) to the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, and another, lent from the Royal Collection, was shown at the London Exhibition of 1905. 12
8: London Pall Mall 1874 (cat. no. 3).
9: Liverpool 1874 (cat. no. 500).
10: New York 1881 (cat. no. 110).
11: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 76); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
12: New York 1904a (cat. no. 84); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 81).
SALES & COLLECTORS
). Freer bought another from the collection of Thomas Way (1837-1915) in 1905 (). Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921) owned an impression of the second state, about which he wrote:13: Wedmore 1886 A (cat. no. 81).
). It was bequeathed to his daughter, Rachel Alexander, and sold by her executors with 19 other etchings for a total of £3165.0.0 to the British Museum, London, in 1973. The Museum acquired a second example in 1890 (). 14
The artist also sold impressions to Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890) and to J. Hogarth & Sons in 1877 for £4.4.0. 15 By 1886, when he sold one to the London print dealer, Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832), and in 1887 and 1889, to Messrs Dowdeswell, the price had gone up to £6.6.0. 16
At auctions it seems to have fetched much less - in 1892, for instance, another London print dealer Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) bought one for £3.12.6 and Deprez & Gutekunst bought another for even less, £2.8.0. 17
14: Whistler to Alexander, [March/April 1875], GUW #07573; ditto, (22 October [1877], #12737; Report of Gere, Keeper of the Print Room, 17 August 1973, B. M., Trustees' Reports.
15: Whistler to Howell, 12 October-5 November 1877, GUW #12735; to Hogarth, 22-7 October [1877], #12737.
16: Whistler to T. McLean, [1 November 1886], GUW #13010; to Dowdeswell, 28 April 1887, #13020; 3 August 1889, #13092.
17: Sotheby's, 3 March 1892 (lot 130); Christie's, 8 March 1892 (lot 309).