Weary | ||
Number: | 93 | |
Date: | 1863 | |
Medium: | drypoint and roulette | |
Size: | 199 x 132 mm | |
Signed: | 'Whistler.' at lower left (4-final) | |
Inscribed: | '63.' at lower left (4); date removed (5) | |
Set/Publication: | no | |
No. of States: | 6 | |
Known impressions: | 35 | |
Catalogues: | K.92; M.92; T.71; W.83 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (35) |
PUBLICATION
EXHIBITIONS
It is possible that it was exhibited in 1874 at Whistler's first one-man exhibition, when a portrait was praised in the Builder: 'A "Portrait" of an apparently invalid lady of much beauty of countenance, leaning back in an easy chair, is exquisite in the delicate portrayal of the features and the contours of the bust and the figure.' 24
21: London RA 1863 (cat. no. 941).
22: The Athenaeum, 16 May 1863, p. 655.
23: The Athenaeum, 23 May 1863, p. 688 (in GUL PC1/17).
25: Liverpool 1874 (cat. no. 486).
Impressions were exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic: a 'Trial proof' was lent by Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) to the Union League Club in New York in 1881 (). 27 An impression was lent by Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924) to the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888 (probably ). 28 Another was shown by Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) in Liverpool in 1893 in a show of etchings and cancelled plates. The didactic element in some of these shows is apparent. For instance, at H. Wunderlich & Co. in New York in 1898 two impressions were shown together, with the state described in the catalogue, one as 'Proof before the name and date' () and the second, 'Proof with the name and date'. 29
27: New York 1881 (cat. no. 113).
28: Glasgow 1888 (cat. no. 2552-25)
29: New York 1898 (cat. no. 78).
Impressions were shown at the Memorial Exhibitions held after Whistler's death, at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904; in Boston, lent by Francis Bullard (1862-1913)) also in 1904; and in Paris and London in 1905, the latter lent by King Edward VII. 33
30: Mansfield to Whistler, 10 January 1893, GUW #04000.
31: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 78).
32: See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
33: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 67); London Mem. 1905(cat. no. 83).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Surprisingly Whistler charged the same price - £5.5.0 - to Messrs Dowdeswell ten years later, but by 1889 had raised the price marginally to £6.6.0, which was the price also paid by Wunderlich's in 1890 and 1891. 35 About this time - 1890/1891 - Whistler recorded that he had only one impression still in stock.
34: 10 October 1877, GUW #12734; 12 October - 5 November [1877], #12735; [19/22 October 1877], #12736.
35: 28 April 1887, GUW #13020; 3 August 1889, #13092; Wunderlich's receipt, 3 and 28 April 1890, #13057; 6 April 1891, #13097.
36: Whistler's stock list, [1890/1891], GUW #13236; Freer memo., [4 September 1902], #11701; FGA archives.
37: Sotheby's, 3 March 1892 (lots 134, 135).