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Justice Walk, Chelsea

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1889.6)
Number: 441
Date: 1888
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 166 x 242 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 4
Catalogues: K.275; M.270
Impressions taken from this plate  (4)

PUBLICATION

Justice Walk, Chelsea was never published.

EXHIBITIONS

Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) lent an impression to the exhibition organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (). 8 Another was shown at the annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts in 1902, lent by Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) (). 9

Impressions were also shown in the Memorial Exhibitions after Whistler's death. Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) lent one to the Boston show in 1904 (), and Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) to the London Memorial Exhibition of 1905. 10

8: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 300); see REFERENCES : EXHIBITIONS.

9: Philadelphia 1902 (cat. no. 947 (271)).

10: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 206); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 296).

SALES & COLLECTORS

It was priced at £10.10.0. Whistler sold an impression to the London art dealers, Messrs Dowdeswell on 10 December 1888 and got it back on 19 December! 11

H. Wunderlich & Co. of New York bought one marked 'Chosen Proof' on 16 April 1889 for £10.10.10 (less 20 percent discount). 12 It was probably sold immediately on 27 May 1889 to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) (). The firm also reported one sold years later at a price of £12.12.0. 13 This may have been the impression owned at some time by Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935), which bears Wunderlich's stock number a 39030 () or by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) who owned one by 1900 ().

11: Whistler to Dowdeswell, GUW #13029; reply, #00911.

12: GUW #13055; 14 May 1889, #13056.

13: 6 April 1900, GUW #07322.

On 27 May 1889 Ernest George Brown (1853/1854-1915) wrote that a customer of the Fine Art Society in London had requested an etching described as 'A shop front, similar shape with the words 'Brett confectioner' on the sign (obviously the signs had been interpreted wrongly) and 'Rich early impression'. Whistler sent an impression as requested, on 29 May. 14

On 18 July 1889 Whistler recorded that he had only one impression in stock, and he sold this, his last impression, to Roland F. Knoedler (1856-1932) two days later. 15

14: GUW #01226; Whistler to F.A.S., 29 May [1889], #13645.

15: GUW #13235; #13080.