Harris Schrank Fine Prints

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Gants de Suede, lithograph, 1890, signed in pencil with the butterfly lower left [also with the artist’s butterfly signature in the plate].  Reference: Spink, Stratis and Tedeschi 35. In good condition, with slight evidence of pale mat staining, pinhole toward bottom edge.   8 1/2 x 4 1/8, the sheet 12 1/2 x 8 3/16 inches.

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries, with their stock number (a23958) recto.

Estate of Marie D. Powers (acquired from above, 1974)

A fine lifetime impression.

Printed on a cream laid paper with the watermark IV, Spink et al’s Watermark number 191 (IV countermark to Seven Provinces, nos. 273,274), identified as a lifetime watermark characteristic of the pre-publication lifetime impressions of Gants de Suede.

Gants de Suede is a portrait of Whistler’s sister-in-law, Ethel Birnie Philip. Whistler was apparently pleased with this lithograph, for after a small number of impressions were printed he agreed that it could be published by The Studio, an art magazine that had recently been launched. The present impression is before this larger edition.

Spink et al note: “By manipulating several lithographic crayons, Whistler achieved a range of subtle tonalities and a convincing sense of the figure’s plasticity in Gants de suede. These qualities were most fully realized in the impressions Thomas Way printed by hand from the original stone.”

Whistler – Becquet

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Becquet, 1859, etching, printed in dark brown on ivory wove paper. Signed in pencil with the butterfly lower margin, and signed with the butterfly and inscribed by the artist “Very fine proof” and with the tiny circle device (the artist’s marking of a fine proof) verso.  In very good condition, remains of prior hinging verso. References: Glasgow 62, sixth state (of 6), Kennedy 52, fourth state (of four); Lochnan 55, included in the Thames Set, 10 x 7 5/8, the sheet 11 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches.

Provenance

Howard Mansfield (Lugt 1342, two stamps verso)

Harris Whitmore (Lugt 1384a, stamp verso)

E.R. Martin, New York (pencil initials verso, not in Lugt)

Charles C. Cunningham, Jr., Boston (not in Lugt, stamp verso)

R.M. Light and Co., Boston

acquired: Carolyn Crossett Rowland, from above, 1980

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number verso, a27047)

A very fine, rich impression; given its exceptional quality probably printed apart from the Thames Edition.

Another impression in this state signed and with the artist’s inscription as here is in the Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the signature on the Freer impression is estimated by Glasgow to be of 1890.

Whistler titled the plate The Fiddler when he published it as part of the Thames Set in 1871. It is one of the two non-Thames subjects included in the set (the other is The Forge, Kennedy 68). The print shows the French sculptor and musician Just Becquet (1829–1907), a friend of the artist who, according to Joseph Pennell’s Whistler Journal, lived in his studio among “disorder and his cello” (quoted after Lochnan, p. 104).

The plate on which the portrait was drawn had previously been used for an oblong view of West Point which a friend of Whistler brought to him for his opinion; stacked muskets and other paraphernalia can still be seen toward the lower edge of this print.

Verso: Cunningham stamp; Whistler butterfly and inscriptions

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Becquet, 1859, etching, printed in black on very thin Japan paper (the sheet has various condition problems and is laid down on wove paper). References: Glasgow 62, fourth state (of 6; this impression is pictured in the Glasgow catalogue for the fourth state), Kennedy 52, second state (of four); Lochnan 55, 9 ¾ x 7 ½, the sheet 10 ½ x 8 inches.

Provenance

Knoedler & Co., New York (their stock no. in pencil on the verso MK31679)

An early impression of this print. This proof precedes those published in the Thames Set (the first printing of this Set was in the fifth state, a later printing in the 1870’s in the sixth state.  In states after the fourth the foul biting at the bottom of the plate was cleaned.

Whistler titled the plate The Fiddler when he published it as part of the Thames Set in 1871. It is one of the two non-Thames subjects included in the set (the other is The Forge, Kennedy 68). The print shows the French sculptor and musician Just Becquet

(1829–1907), a friend of the artist who, according to Joseph Pennell’s Whistler Journal, lived in his studio among “disorder and his cello” (quoted after Lochnan, p. 104).

“The plate on which the portrait was drawn had previously been used for an oblong view of West Point which a friend of Whistler

brought to him for his opinion; stacked muskets can still be seen at the lower right corner of this print”.

$3500

James Whistler (1834-1903), Nocturne: Palaces, etching and drypoint with plate tone, 1879-80, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp.” Also with a second butterfly in pencil verso, and the artist’s tiny circle device (signifying a selected proof).  Reference: Glasgow 200, twelfth state (of 12), Kennedy 202, ninth state (of 9). From the Twenty-Six Etchings,  the Second Venice Set. In very good condition (scattered light foxing verso, not visible recto), on laid paper (trimmed by the artist to the platemark except for the tab), 11 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches.

Watermark: Coat of Arms of Amsterdam

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number a53836 verso

Ch. E. Ellingwood (Lugt 822, verso)

A superb, luminous impression, printed in brown ink, carefully wiped to darken the water in the canal in the foreground and the sky toward the top.

It is rather unusual for Whistler to sign his prints verso (as well as recto); this is sometimes considered evidence of a selected proof, as is his adding of one or more tiny circles. Of course Whistler was a practiced marketer, so such added markings are not always indicative of anything; and in any case they are quite unnecessary as proof of the quality of this impression.

In this state, in the words of the Glasgow catalogue, “considerable shading is added to the left side of the image, most notably: on the sky between the left and centre palaces and the wall of the right palace; under the eaves of the left palace; on the balcony, shadow and doorway of the left palace; on the centre palace, seen behind the bridge; around the beams eminating from the lamp; on the bridge, the shadow beneath it and its reflection; and on the reflection of the gondola.” These additions heighten the features of the palaces, the bridge, and the lamplight, which were losing focus in prior states.

Each impression of Nocturne: Palaces is different from the others, in effect a monotype, expressing different times of night or day, temperatures, effects of light. The lamp lighting the composition from within (a device borrowed from Rembrandt and also used in his Street at Saverne of 1858) is in this impression quite visible; in other impressions it is pale and nearly lost.  This impression is in some ways  comparable to an impression (also of the last state) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (pictured in Katherine A. Lochnan’s book The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler) although of course there are still substantial differences in the wiping of the plate tone. Indeed, differences in states for this print can be slight,  while differences in the wiping of the plate from one impression to another are vast.

Margaret MacDonald in her classic Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice amplifies:  “Nocturne: Palaces was a daring plate: difficult to print, relying heavily on the quality of the ephemeral drypoint lines…in the best impressions it is the inking of the plate that coordinates and unifies the widely dispersed lines of shading. The linear pattern of marks is unusual and the inking makes each print unique.”

Claude – The Country Dance, Small Plate

Claude Gellee, called Le Lorrain (1600-1682), The Country Dance, Small Plate, etching, c. 1637. Reference: Manocci 19, fourth state B (of seven). In very good condition, trimmed on or outside of the platemark, 5 3/8 x 7 3/4 inches.

Watermark: Pascal Lamb (Manocci watermark no. 19)

A fine lifetime impression, printed with a subtle layering of plate tone.

The first state of The Country Dance, with three goats in the foreground left, is known in only one impression (in the British Museum). The second state, with the goats burnished out, is also unique (collection: Oxford). In the third state, lines in the sky were burnished out, and in the fourth state (A) the plate corners have been rounded; in the fourth state (B) a long broken scratch runs through the highest of the three birds. In the fifth state, after our impression, the plate was entirely re-worked – a village has replaced the forest scene at the left, foliage in the lower left corner was reduced. The sixth and seventh states are posthumous.

Claude made his etchings as original works, with preparatory drawings; the preparatory drawing for The Country Dance is incised for transfer (at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). The theme of a country dance was used by Claude throughout his life, appearing in the closely related etching La Danse Villageoise (M. 20), and also in several drawings and paintings.

Claude, The Country Dance – detail