Etchings Institutions search term: dowdeswell
Regent's Quadrant | ||
Number: | 242 | |
Date: | 1880/1881 | |
Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
Size: | 166 x 122 mm | |
Signed: | butterfly at upper right | |
Inscribed: | no | |
Set/Publication: | no | |
No. of States: | 7 | |
Known impressions: | 10 | |
Catalogues: | K.239; M.235; W.192 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (10) |
PUBLICATION
EXHIBITIONS
The Saturday Review in 1883 commented on the 'Japanese-like mark' (the butterfly) with which Whistler signed his work, and praised 'a clever suggestion of the hurry and bustle of the streets' in Regent’s Quadrant. 14
Later, impressions were shown in New York, by the print dealers H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 and 1903. Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent an impression to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (). 15 One was shown at Obach & Co. in London in 1903 and bought by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (). 16
After Whistler's death, an impression was shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, and Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) lent one to the Whistler Memorial Exhibition in London in 1905. 17
13: London FAS 1883 (cat. no. 22).
14: Anon., 'Mr Whistler's Exhibition', Saturday Review, 24 February 1883 (GUL PC 25/32).
15: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 172); see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
16: London Obach 1903 (cat. no. 166).
17: New York 1904a (cat. no. 194); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 192).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Messrs Dowdeswell wanted impressions and were the main purchasers. Whistler sold them two on 28 April 1887 for £5.5.0 each, five for £6.6.0 each on 27 July 1887 (although one was returned on 10 August), and one more for £7.7.0 on 30 September 1887. 19 Whistler sold one to another art dealer, Roland F. Knoedler (1856-1932), also for £7.7.0, in 1888. 20
Finally Whistler's chief U.S. agents, H. Wunderlich & Co., had one for sale at £6.6.0 in 1897, which they had sold by 1899. 21
Prices at auction were a great deal lower. At the sale of the collection of the late Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891) at Sotheby’s on 3 March 1892, lot 286, a 'first state' was bought by Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) of F. Keppel & Co. for only £0.11.0; lot 287 was bought by 'Barr' for £1.0.0; and lot 288 by Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) for £1.11.0.