?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
JAMES A. M. WHISTLER St. James's Street.
Etching and drypoint printed in dark brownish black on antique cream laid paper, 1878. 275x152 mm; 10 7/8x6 inches, full margins. MacDonald's fourth state (of 4), before cancellation. Edition of approximately only 30. A superb, early, richly-inked impression of this scarce etching, with very strong contrasts and with the delicate drypoint clouds in the sky and the butterfly signature lower left distinct.
Whistler (1834-1903) drew this scene directly on an etching plate, from a balcony at the Albemarle Hotel looking down St. James's Street. The etching was commissioned by Vanity Fair, where it was ultimately reproduced by lithographic transfer; Whistler used the commission to help offset financial troubles stemming from the libel suit against the art critic John Ruskin. Kennedy 169; Glasgow 178.
