JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER PRINTS

[8] the Rag Pickers, Quartier
Mouffetard, Paris, 1858
Etching and drypoint, signed in pencil, Whistler, lower left
corner of sheet, printed in warm black ink on laid paper, a proof
impression in the third state (of five), before the addition of
figures and publication
6 x 3 1/2 inches (15.2 x 9 cm) sheet 7 7/8 x 5 inches (20 x 12.5 cm)
Provenance: Howard Mansfield [Lugt 1342], bought from Kennedy
Galleries (stock number a37141, verso); Harris G. Whittemore
[Lugt 1384a]
Reference: Kennedy 23; Glasgow 29
A doorway gives on to a dark, sparsely furnished room
with an unmade bed and a few rags hanging from the
wall. Ralph Thomas, the first cataloguer of Whistler’s
etchings, said that the figures added in the fifth state
were drawn at the suggestion of his father in 1861 when
he held an exhibition of Whistler’s etchings at his print
shop at 39 Old Bond Street, London.
Quartier Mouffetard is in the fifth arrondissement,
the Latin Quarter, and is one of the oldest neighbourhoods
in Paris. It escaped the modernisation of the city
by Baron Hausmann in the 1860s and remained a squalid
area, home to the poorest inhabitants.
Impressions in the first four states, before the two
figures were added, are extremely rare: only seven
in addition to this one are recorded in the Glasgow
catalogue. This impression belonged to Howard
Mansfield, whose catalogue of Whistler’s etchings and
drypoints was published in 1909, the year before that
written by Edward Kennedy. It was then acquired by
Harris Whittemore whose fine collection has since been
dispersed.
[9] Seymour, 1858–59
Etching and drypoint, signed in pencil Whistler, lower right
and inscribed Seymour, lower left; inscribed in pencil by Francis
Seymour Haden in lower margin 1st pr from plate, printed in warm
black ink on fine laid paper, watermark hunting horn in shield; in
the second state (of three): there was no published edition
5 1/4 x 3 7/8 inches (13.5 x 9.9 cm)
sheet 7 1/8 x 5 5/8 inches (18.1 x 14.3 cm)
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, New York (their stock number
in pencil on verso a37155); Ethel Gardner; a gift in memory of her
husband George Peabody Gardner (nephew and heir of Isabella
Stewart Gardner) to Bishop Laurence of the Archdiocese of
Boston; George S. van Houten, Waalre, Netherlands
Reference: Kennedy 31; Glasgow 30
The young boy leaning against a tree in contemplative
pose, possibly in Greenwich Park in London, with his
partial reflection visible on the surface of the water in
the foreground, is Francis Seymour Haden, Jr. (1850–
1918), the eldest son of Whistler’s half-sister, Deborah
Delano Haden, and her husband Francis Seymour
Haden, Sr. Young Seymour posed for two other portrait
etchings by Whistler: Seymour, Standing (1857–1858; K.6)
and Seymour Haden, Jr., Seated (1857–1858; K.29). The
couple had another son, Arthur Charles (1852–1910) and
a daughter, Anne Harriet, known as Annie (1848–1937),
both of whom were also portrayed by their uncle in several
etchings. In 1858 and 1859, Whistler visited his sister
and her family at their house in Sloane Street, London
from Paris; as the Glasgow catalogue suggests, the leafy
trees and the light clothing of the boy suggest a date of
fall 1858 or spring 1859 for the etching, which the artist
may have initially drawn in the open air.
The boy is wearing typical Victorian boy’s dress, with
a high bonnet and a knee-length kilt or skirt, long socks,
and lace-up shoes. While the execution of the work is
somewhat stiff and illustrational in style, it points to
Whistler’s preoccupation throughout his career with
reflection, both mental and physical. He was later to elaborate
on the latter with an exceptionally nuanced sophistication
in his watery scenes of Venice and Amsterdam.
18 EARLY printS and THE FRENCH SET james mcneill whistler: prints 19