La Marchande de Moutarde – First, Second and Fifth States
The second state (of 5)
James Whistler (1834-1903), La Marchande de moutarde – The Mustard Merchant 1858, etching and drypoint on very thin Japan paper; with small margins; signed in pencil with the butterfly in the lower margin. Reference: Kennedy 22, second state (of five); Lochnan 24
Provenance
Kennedy Galleries, New York (twice; their stock nos. in pencil on verso a37139 and a61426)
A very fine impression of the extremely rare second state of five, printing with rich tone; before the intricate lines above the pots
on the shelf and the vertical lines on the beam just below the arch.
The composition is based on a pencil drawing Whistler made in Cologne during a walking tour through France and the Rhineland
with Ernest Delannoy in 1858. The print was shown together with a portrait etching at the Paris Salon of 1859 and can be considered
the artist’s first introduction to the public. For this historic reason, but also because of the charming quality of the image
itself, La Marchande is rightly considered one of Whistler’s most important early prints.
The edition of two hundred impressions made by the printer Frederick Goulding in 1886 also makes it one of Whistler’s least
rare works. However, as Ruth Fine has pointed out, the last two states “are marked […] by defacing” (p. 33). An early impression
such as this one—particularly one that is signed—is extremely rare – only about 10 impressions of the second state are known.
This is being sold with an exceedingly fine impression of the even rarer first state, pictured just below. We believe this impression is one of only two, the other residing at the National Gallery, Washington D.C. Lastly, an exceptionally fine impression of the fifth and final state (shown at bottom), from the famed Harrington collection (Lugt 1347), printed before the larger edition, accompanies these two rare early impressions.
The rare first state
Fifth State