UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Battersea: Early Morning

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1903.261)
Number: 157
Date: 1875
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 115 x 229 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Cancelled Plates', 1879
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 22
Catalogues: K.152; M.149; W.129
Impressions taken from this plate  (22)

TECHNIQUE

The first state was etched, with extensive additions and clarification of details in drypoint in the next two states.

PRINTING

It is very rare: only three impressions before cancellation are in public collections (Graphic with a link to impression #K1520102, Graphic with a link to impression #K1520202, Graphic with a link to impression #K1520302). All three are in warm black ink on ivory laid paper removed from a book, with old pen inscriptions on the verso; furthermore, two have an Arms of Amsterdam watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K1520202, Graphic with a link to impression #K1520302). This suggests that they were drawn, etched and printed in quick succession over a short period of time.
It was published in an album of Cancelled Plates ('Cancelled Set') by The Fine Art Society, London, 1879. The cancelled impressions were printed in an edition of about 20 or 24 in black ink on cream or ivory laid paper, sometimes with a Van Gelder (i.e. Graphic with a link to impression #K1520403) or Strasbourg Lily watermark (Graphic with a link to impression #K1520404, Graphic with a link to impression #K1520410). Four different cancelled etchings, including an impression of Battersea: Early Morning, were printed on the same sheet of ivory laid Van Gelder paper (Graphic with a link to impression #K0790203, Graphic with a link to impression #K0940303, Graphic with a link to impression #K1510203, Graphic with a link to impression #K1520403).