?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
JAMES A. M. WHISTLER The Smithy.
Etching and drypoint printed in dark brown on cream laid paper, 1880. 177x229 mm; 7x9 inches. Sixth state (of 6). Signed with the butterfly and inscribed "imp." in pencil, lower left. A very good impression of this extremely scarce etching.
We have found only 7 other impressions at auction in the past 25 years. MacDonald cites 20 known impressions, including those at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Freer Gallery of Art, Washignton, D.C., the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
According to MacDaonald, though he worked on this subject through six different states Whistler, "never resolved the right side of the composition. He used etching and then combined it with drypoint to refine and enhance the shading of the ceiling, the objects in the room and the dark shadows. However, the sketchy figure to the left of the anvil in the first state, although later removed, was never replaced, leaving a white unetched area on that part of the image." Kennedy 240; Glasgow 239.
