Etching and drypoint on cream laid paper, 1889. 175x258 mm; 7x10 1/4 inches, wide margins. Edition of approximately only 20. Signed in pencil, lower right. A superb impression of this extremely scarce, early etching.
We have not found another impression at auction in the past 20 years.
Pennell (1857-1926) was among Whistler's most devoted followers and an early biographer. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1870s and was taught etching by the Philadelphia artist Stephen Ferris. Influenced by the exhibition of Whistler's first 'Venice Set' at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1881, Pennell set out for England in 1883 with a letter of introduction and hopes of meeting Whistler in London. They did not meet until the summer of 1884, after Pennell had traveled through Europe and spent more than a month in Venice, possibly working with Frank Duveneck.
Pennell finally managed to get close to Whistler in the early 1890s, when he was a frequent visitor at Whistler's apartment on the rue de Bac in Paris and helped Whistler proof his etchings at the time.
This is a similar view to Whistler's, lot 21, down the Thames toward the Houses of Parliament. Pennell's etching, made 30 years after Whistler's, shows the Embankment completed and the new Westminster Bridge in place.Wuerth 146.
