1870s Landscape Prints

Wonderful etching, aquatint, drypoint, and wheel on laid ivory colored paper. Signed inside out on plate on the lower margin at the center. Each image of the composition is hand-titl...

Cliché-verre. Magnificent proof of ancient edition, numbered in red pencil on verso, and whose subject wasn’t included in the later reprints by Bouasse-Lebel and Le Garrec. Signed on...

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Traghetto, etching and drypoint, 1879-80, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp”. Reference: Kennedy 19...

Beautiful proof on vélin fort, with stamp “Lugt 1048”. Full margins. Ref. Cat. Harrington 170; Schneiderman 163.

Beautiful proof printed in brown on verge paper, signed by the artist in pencil. Some minor folds on top and bottom of sheet; fold of edition on center of sheet. Full margins. Ex-col...

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Bridge, Santa Marta, 1879-80, etching with drypoint, printed in sepia on fine laid paper. Signed with the butterfly and inscribed imp on the tab (also with an exceedingly light butterfly lower right in the plate). Kennedy 204, probably eighth (final) state; Glasgow 201, probably state 9 (of 9) (cf. Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2011), Lochnan 199. Trimmed to the platemark by the artist, h: 11.8 x w: 7.9 in / h: 30 x w: 20.1 cm. A fine impression, printed with subtle tone. The bridge theme occurs repeatedly in Whistler’s vistas. It is also the main focus of more than one of the Venetian prints. While some bridges are seen from below, from where one would see it if approaching in a gondola (for example Ponte del Piovan, Kennedy 209), The Bridge depicts the scene from a high perspective, opening up the view into the far distance. The small boat approaching the arch in the foreground is again, as in the earlier Thames prints, a stock motif that is probably ultimately derived from the Japanese woodcuts of Hokusai and Hiroshige. The bridge here is the Ponte de le Terese over the Rio de l’Arzere in the Santa Marta quarter. The early biography of Whistler by Elizabeth and Joseph Pennell is essential for its “immense quantity of information” but also notorious for “the inherent hyperbole and misinformation” (Eric Denker, Annotated Bibliography, in Fine, p. 184). Still, it is worth quoting from the Pennels’ appraisal of The Bridge: “Simplicity of expression has never been carried further. Probably the finest plate, in its simplicity and directness, is The Bridge. Whistler now obtained the quality of richness by suggesting detail, and also by printing. In The Traghetto...

James Whistler (1830-1903), Battersea Morn (also Battersea Dawn), drypoint, 1875, Kennedy 155, signed in pencil with the butterfly and inscribed “imp”. Kennedy 155, first state (of ...

James McNeill Whistler (1830-1903), Lagoon: Noon, etching and drypoint, 1879-1880, signed with the butterfly and inscribed “imp” on the tab [also signed with the butterfly in the plate lower left]. Reference: Glasgow 209, third state (of 3), Kennedy 216, third state (of 3); Lochnan 231, 4 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches. A fine impression with very little plate tone, and printed with extraordinary attention to the etching and drypoint details. The printed butterfly, usually only barely visible, is clearly defined in this impression (see detail below). Kennedy mades special note that an impression like this, with the clearly visible butterfly, was in the collection of John H. Wrenn. On a commission from the Fine Arts Society, Whistler created the plates of his Venice series...

The Venetian Mast. 1879-80. Etching and drypoint. Kennedy catalog 195 state .vi; Glasgow catalog 219 state x/xii. 13 3/8 x 6 3/8. Glasgow records 53 impressions. A fine, atmospheric...

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Little Mast, etching, drypoint and burnishing, 1879-80, signed in pencil with the early shaded butterfly lower left and annotated “imp”. References: G...

CURRIER AND IVES A HALT BY THE WAYSIDE, ca 1870 (Conningham 2694) Lithograph with original color. 1 - 1 1/2 inch margins. Image 8 x 12 1/2 Inches, sheet 10 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches. Ge...