Live Auction 2740Prints & Multiples
JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER (1834-1903)
Lot 19 PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION 

JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER (1834-1903)

Study

Closed30 October 2013

Price Realised

USD 81,250

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JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER (1834-1903)
Study
lithotint printed in brown, 1878, on heavy wove paper, a fine impression of the first state (of two), very rare, only twelve impressions were recorded by Way in both states, occasional small skinned spots recto and verso, presumably from the removal of a previous mat, otherwise in generally good condition, framed.
Image: 10 3/8 x 9 3/8 in. (264 x 239 mm.)
Sheet: 14¼ x 10 in. (362 x 254 mm.)

A. W. Scholle (L. 2923a)

Specialist note

This ethereal portrait of the artist's friend Maud Franklin is, remarkably, only his second essay in lithotint, a notoriously difficult medium to control. It shows a more successful integration of liquid tusche and lithographic crayon than his first attempt Study: Maud Seated (Way 131) from the same year. The strength of the printing of the areas of broad wash, particularly to the right, and the heavy wove paper, of the type used for proofing, suggest that this may be one of the earliest impressions taken. As Way made no distinction between the states in his tally of twelve we cannot be certain how many of these were in the first state, as here. Spink, Stratis and Tedeschi list two, in the British Museum and the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.