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Tilbury

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1933.214)
Number: 312
Date: 1887
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 83 x 179 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 10
Catalogues: K.317; M.312
Impressions taken from this plate  (10)

PUBLICATION

Tilbury was not published but it was related to the 'Jubilee Set'.

EXHIBITIONS

As far as is known it was not exhibited until 1903, the year of Whistler's death. This is not certain because some 'Naval Review' sets were displayed without individual titles. Tilbury was identified first in an exhibition in New York by H. Wunderlich & Co. and by Obach & Co. in London, both in 1903. 7

Impressions were shown after Whistler's death in the principal Memorial Exhibitions including the Grolier Club New York, 1904 and one was lent by John Charles Sigismund Day (1826-1908) to the Whistler Memorial in London in 1905. 8

7: New York 1903b (cat. no. 196); London Obach 1903 (cat. no. 228). See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.

8: New York 1904a (cat. no. 260); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 276).

SALES & COLLECTORS

Within a month of the Naval Review, Whistler was selling etchings from the series. He sold one impression to the London print dealer Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832) on 20 August 1887 for £7.7.0, another through Wunderlich's of New York to a relative, Ross Revillon Winans (1850-1912), on 3 May 1888 for £7.7.0, and one to Frederick Keppel (1845-1912) of F. Keppel & Co. on 2 July 1888 for £5.5.0. 9 Finally, one was sold to another London dealer, Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851), on 8 June 1903 for £10.10.0 - the high price possibly reflecting the fact that Whistler was dying. 10

A complete set of the Jubilee etchings in an album, including an impression of Tilbury (), was presented to Queen Victoria, and was later sold by King Edward VII through Agnew & Sons and Obach & Co. to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), who sold it back to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), who gave it to the University of Glasgow. A similar set was later acquired by Walter Stanton Brewster (1872-1954), who gave it to the Art Institute of Chicago () .

Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) was among the earliest purchasers of Tilbury, in 1888 (), as was John Henry Wrenn (1841-1911) () and Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924) (). The impression owned by Jules Gerbeau (d. 1906) was later bought by H. Wunderlich & Co., and eventually by the Library of Congress (). Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) owned one, later bought through A.A. Hahlo by Harris G. Whittemore (d. ca 1937) (). One impression - an earlier state than that in the Royal album - stayed in the artist's estate and was bequeathed to his sister-in-law Miss Birnie Philip whence it came to the University of Glasgow ().

9: GUW #13089; #07158; #13051; #13063.

10: 17 June 1903, receipt, GUW #13042.