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James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903
Billingsgate, 1859signed and dated 1859 in plate; printed in black ink on thin Japan paperetching and drypointan impression in the eighth (final) state6 x 8 ¾ inches (15.2 x 22.3 cm)Likely etched from the Custom House Stairs, this work provides a view of London’s largest inland fish market with London Bridge visible in the background. It serves as an example...Likely etched from the Custom House Stairs, this work provides a view of London’s largest inland fish market with London Bridge visible in the background. It serves as an example of Whistler’s career-long obsession with how the rigging of ships can be used to activate and define pictorial space. For many years, this was one of Whistler’s most widely published and successful etchings, eventually appearing in Portfolio magazine in 1878. This specific association with the publisher Ernest Brown proved vital, as it provided Whistler with the funds needed to survive his impending bankruptcy and ultimately led to his links with The Fine Art Society and subsequent career-defining commission in Venice.Provenance
The Fine Art Society, London, 2007; private collection, EnglandExhibitions
The Fine Art Society, James McNeill Whistler: The Embroidered Curtain, London, 2007, no. 11Literature
R. Thomas, A Catalogue of the Etchings and Drypoints of James Abbott MacNeil Whistler (London 1874), no. 34;F. Wedmore, Whistler's Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue (London 1886), no. 45;
H. Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Chicago 1909), no. 46;
E.G. Kennedy, The Etched Work of Whistler (New York 1910), no. 47;
M.F. MacDonald, G. Petri, M. Hausberg, and J. Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, (Glasgow 2011), on-line website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk, no. 51
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