Billingsgate
James Whistler (1834-1903), Billingsgate. Kennedy 47. Signed on the tab with Whistler’s butterfly. Seventh state of eight. On laid paper, printed in a dark brown ink, in very good condition, archival mounting. Ex. coll S.H. Nazeby Harrington (and with his stamp bottom left recto, also with the stamp verso, Lugt 1347, 1348, 1349). Dated July 2, 1886 by Harrington on the verso (this was the date the print was given to him by Whistler. Sheet 6 x 9 inches (152 x 229 mm).
An extraordinarily fine impression of this unusual state, before the diagonal lines between the masts at the right were eliminated (and so before the unsigned edition of 100 in the final state, published in 1878).
Billingsgate is one of the most famous of the Whistler etchings of the Thames River. Billingsgate was the fish market near London Bridge. The etching shows the wharf, the oldest on the Thames, with the Clock Tower and buildings of the market rising behind a stone embankment. The etching is one of Whistler’s best known; indeed it is pictured on the cover of the Kennedy catalogue raisonne.
Billingsgate is not rare in its final state - impressions (although uncommonly as fine as this one) are often available on the market. It is unusual, however, to find an early state impression of Billingsgate, and, moreover to find one signed in pencil (of course it is also signed and dated in the plate). In fact we know of no other signed impression of Billingsgate.
Whistler did not sign his prints in pencil with the famous butterfly until about 1879. Billingsgate was done in 1859. Whistler did, on occasion, sign prints that had been printed years earlier, and we believe this is the case with our impression, which was printed before the edition made on Japan paper of the final state (published in 1878). Dr. Samuel H.N. Harrington, in a note appended to the back of the mat, writes: “Presented to me by Mr. Whistler, July 2 1886, HNH”. Harrington also dated the gift (July 2, 1886) verso. Harrington, a sometimes etcher, collector and etching scholar is perhaps best known today as the author of an early catalogue