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James Abbott McNeill WhistlerThe Unsafe Tenement1858
1858
$4,750
£3,649.25
€4,192.95
CA$6,681.46
A$7,506.32
CHF 3,922.07
MX$91,618.20
NOK 49,798.79
SEK 46,875.06
DKK 31,289.32
About the Item
James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), The Unsafe Tenement, etching, 1858. [signed in the plate lower right]. References: Kennedy 17. Glasgow 18, fourth state (of four). In very good condition, printed on a very thin (two ply?) Japan paper, with margins, 6 1/8 x 8 3/4, the sheet 8 1/4 x 11, archival mounting.
A brilliant, black impression printed with astonishing clarity and exquisite detailing, on an ivory Japan paper. Presumably this is a proof impression before the relatively large edition published in this state (the edition was not on this paper).
Provenance: Inscribed “To Otto J. Schneider from his friend Frederick Keppel”. Schneider (1875-1946) was an American artist, noted for his realism, influenced by Whistler. Keppel was of course the well-known American dealer, one of whose specialties was Whistler prints. Keppel had a good relationship with Whistler until, as in most of his relationships, Whistler became inordinately troublesome – at which point Keppel wrote Whistler a longish, mocking poem, with lines such as these: “Like cackling hens or cocks a-crowing Your tireless trumpet keeps a-blowing. ” After this, Keppel wrote “at this point all my intercourse with this extraordinary man came to an end.”
(In the lower right is the ghost of another inscription, now erased, apparently to another friend from Edna (?) Schneider who presumably owned this print after Otto Schneider.)
This is one of Whistler’s very early prints, a portrait of a dilapidated farmhouse in Alsace-Lorraine. In the first state a woman sweeping appears; she was burnished out and replaced by the pitchfork in the second state. In this superb impression the outlines of the woman (her dress, feet) are clearly visible near the bottom of the pitchfork.
- Creator:James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903, American)
- Creation Year:1858
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU51531577053
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. Whistler was born on July 11, 1834, in Lowell. During his formative years in Paris in the 1850s, Whistler was influenced by the injunctions of the poet and theorist Charles Baudelaire that artists should take subjects from modern life and seek a new beauty in the teeming cities. Whistler's first major suite of prints, his French Set brought critical acclaim but disappointing sales. Seeking more generous patrons, he moved to London in 1859. Initially, under the influence of his brother-in-law Francis Seymour Haden, a pioneer of the etching revival, he began a series of superbly observed and finely detailed views of the River Thames with its shipping, thriving wharves and picturesque characters. In his Thames Set etchings, Whistler often introduced the figures of workmen, boatmen or loungers in the foregrounds. Whistler died on July 17, 1903, in London.
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