Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Mortimer Menpes (1855-1938), Whistler Portrait No. 7 (Six Faces of Whistler), drypoint, 1902-3, signed in pencil and inscribed “imp” bottom right margin. Reference: Morgan 237. Watermark: No. 1 in a diamond. The matrix in good condition, with very wide margins (defects in margins including folds, loss upper right, light mat stains, creases, other defects), 7 3/8 x 5 3/8, the sheet 16 x 10 inches.

A brilliant impression of this iconic print, with much drypoint burr.

Provenance:

A private collection (USA)

David Tunick, Inc., New York

Menpes, a Whistler a pupil and studio assistant in the 1880’s, made a series of eight studies of Whistler which were published in 1904 shortly after Whistler’s death.  In addition to the six portraits of Whistler in our impression, Menpes also depicts a portrait of his three year old daughter – Dorothy Whistler Menpes – in the upper right.

James Whistler (1834-1903), Venus, 1859. Etching and drypoint, printed in black ink on laid paper, an impression in the second (final) state: there was no published edition. 6 x 9 inches (15 x 22.6 cm) sheet 73/8 x 117/8 inches (18.8 x 30.3 cm) Reference: Kennedy 59; Glasgow 60

A study of Héloïse, ‘Fumette’, asleep in bed, her head pressed into the pillow and the bedclothes covering her lower legs. This is one of three portraits Whistler made of Fumette in 1859: one of the others shows her standing and in the third only her head and shoulders are depicted. Venus is a work in the Realist tradition, and may be compared with Courbet’s nudes of the same period. The artist may also have had in mind Rembrandt’s study of Antiope in his etching Jupiter and Antiope.

Venus was never published and there is no record of it being shown until 1898 when it was included in an Exhibition of Etchings, Drypoints and Lithographs by Whistler at H. Wunderlich & Co., New York. To have been overlooked for exhibition until so late in Whistler’s life might suggest that the subject was considered improper. Frederick Wedmore, whose catalogue of Whistler’s etchings was published in 1886, certainly disapproved of the image and described it as ‘the nude seen by Mr Whistler with rather common eyes, for once – an animal, whom sleep has overcome’.

James Whistler (1834-1903), Penny Passengers, Limehouse, 1860. Etching and drypoint, signed in pencil with a butterfly and inscribed imp, printed in black ink on laid paper, trimmed at the platemark, leaving a signature tab, an impression in the second (final) state, one of only six recorded, 31/4 x 81/8 inches (8.2 x 20.7 cm)

Provenance: Otto Gerstenberg, stamp verso [Lugt 2785]

Reference: Kennedy 67; Glasgow 71

The buildings on the far bank of the Thames and the ship and their masts moored there show the distinctive draughtsmanship of the period 1859–1860 when Whistler worked in Limehouse and made an etching there which was published in the Thames Set. Penny Passengers, Limehouse is very rare, with only five impressions known, all but our impression in public collections. It shows in outline a group of passengers waiting for the ferry to cross the river. Whistler inscribed the impression from the Samuel P. Avery collection Thames – Limehouse (now in the New York Public Library).