?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
JAMES A. M. WHISTLER Rotherhithe.
Etching and drypoint printed in dark brownish black on ivory wove paper, 1860. 275x195 mm; 10⅞x7¾ inches, wide margins. MacDonald's second state (of 6), with the drypoint lines in the sky distinct and before the completion of the boat hull between the two seated men. Signed "Whist." and titled in pencil, lower margin. From the Thames Set. A superb, richly-inked and very early impression with strong contrasts and with all the delicate lines in the sky distinct.
Though according to MacDonald, "An important etching— a landmark in Whistler's career— and over 100 impressions are recorded," there are few early state impressions, such as the current lot, before the completion of the boat lower center. MacDonald cites another second state impression of this subject, now in the New York Public Library, on which the blank areas on the stern of the boat seen between the men were filled in with wash, indicating Whistler's (1834-1903) intended direction with the work on the plate.
In a review by the London art critic F. G. Stephens of Whistler's publication and exhibition of the Thames Set in 1871, he noted, "It is a wonderful piece of work. The time seems nearly noon on one of the hottest of London days; the place is the water's edge; the scene, a timber structure on the bank, where one gets a view over the stream which trends to our left in a smooth expanse, but darker in the flood of brilliant light; here are cranes and ropes pendant from them; a tall beam goes from the bottom to the top of the design, to support overhead a work of boards and showing beyond the latter and--slender masts, yards and ropes of a brig, a shipper and his mate, smoke sedately, without the remotest idea on conversation. This work is nearly as rich as The Lime-Burners, and has a more striking subject."
Provenance: Henry Harper Benedict, New York, with the ink stamp (Lugt 1298, verso). Kennedy 66; Glasgow 70.
