Billingsgate | ||
Number: | 51 | |
Date: | 1859 | |
Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
Size: | 152 x 223 mm | |
Signed: | 'Whistler.' to right of centre | |
Inscribed: | '1859.' at lower right | |
Set/Publication: | 'The Portfolio', London, 1878 | |
No. of States: | 9 | |
Known impressions: | 125 | |
Catalogues: | K.47; M.46; T.34; W.45 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (125) |
PUBLICATION
20: Pennell 1908[more], I, p. 257.
22: 'An Unanswered Letter' and 'Inconsequences', in Whistler 1890[more], pp. 78-79.
EXHIBITIONS
In America in the same year, 1881, an impression was shown at the Union League Club in New York, lent and catalogued by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) as 'Billingsgate Market. The figures are finished.' Avery owned two impressions, an early, greyish, one () and a richly printed impression of a later state, which was probably the one in the show (). 26 Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) lent one to an exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (). 27
Other major shows included an international show at Buffalo in 1901 and the annual exhibition in Philadelphia in 1902, the latter lent by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938). 28
Print dealer's shows included H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898 and 1903. Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), through Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), bought an early impression from the 1898 show (). 29
After Whistler's death, impressions were exhibited in the significant Memorial Shows including New York and Boston in 1904 and London in 1905. 30
23: Paris Soc. Nat. 1862; see REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
24: Liverpool 1874 (cat. no. 498); London Pall Mall 1874 (cat. no. 12).
25: Cardiff 1881 (cat. no. 266).
26: New York 1881 (cat. no. 65).
27: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 43).
28: Philadelphia 1902 (cat. no. 947 (45)).
29: New York 1898 (cat. no. 42).
30: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 39); New York 1904a (cat. no. 47); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 45).
SALES & COLLECTORS
31: Whistler to W. H. Carpenter, 3 August 1863, GUW #11109.
On 2 July 1886, with unusual generosity, Whistler gave an impression of the final state to Henry Nazeby Harrington (1862-1937) (). Harrington was a notable collector and connoisseur, and later wrote The Engraved Work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, 1910. Whistler gave another good impression of the final state - in warm black ink on cream Japanese paper - to Henry Lee Higginson (1834-1919) (). In both cases it is likely that he wished to encourage these collectors to buy more of his works.
33: Whistler to Windsor Castle, [19/22 October 1877], GUW #12736; to Hogarth, 22-27 October [1877], #12737; Howell to Whistler, [6-15 November 1877], #02178.
At auction early states fetched considerably more than the comparatively common later states. At the sale of the collection of John W. Wilson (dates unknown) in 1887 a 'first state, rare' was bought by the London print dealer Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) for £6.16.6. In 1892 a 'second state' from the collection of the late Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891) was bought by Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) for £3.7.6. The collection of William Richard Drake (1817-1890), also sold in 1892, included a 'first state' which was bought by Edmund F. Deprez (1851-1915) of Deprez & Gutekunst for £5.5.0. In the following year a less desirable impression was bought by 'Parsons' for only £1.1.0. 35
34: W. B. [William Browne], Greaves, Whistler and Chelsea. A personal note, West London Bookstore, 157 King's Road, Chelsea, 1911, p. 10.
35: Sotheby's, 22 April 1887 (lot 193) and 3 March 1892 (lot 96); Christie's, 8 March 1892 and 8-9 March 1892 (lot 294); Sotheby's, 23 January 1893 (lot 110).
Whistler's major American patron, Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), acquired a representative group of impressions. First he bought a late impression, an eighth state, in 1890 (). When the collection of Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910) was shown by H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898, Freer, acting on the advice of Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), bought a good impression of the second state (). Finally he bought yet another - a fourth state as published - from Wunderlich's in 1898 ().
36: Sotheby's, 25 November 1895 (lot 158); Christie's, 17 February 1896 (lot 103); and 13-14 July 1897 (lot 311).