Newspaper-Stall, Rue de Seine

Object Details

Edition/State

1

Label

An air of excitement suffuses the figures clustered around this French newspaper stall. Whistler etched the scene only a year after Paris’s Musée du Luxembourg purchased the artist’s famous painting of his mother, solidifying his professional standing. By then, Whistler’s command of the written word and his skillful manipulation of the popular press, already evident in his manifesto “The Red Rag” (1878), were established tools in his crusade against the conservative art establishment. His witty compendium of letters to editors and critics, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, first appeared in 1890; it was revised and widely distributed in 1892.

Whistler etchings are identified by "G" numbers as assigned in "James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonn&‌eacute;," by Margaret F. McDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock (University of Glasgow, 2012), http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk. This print is G474 state 1 of 2.

Provenance

From 1906 to 1919

Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Company of the Butterfly, London, in 1906 [1]

From 1920

Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [2]

Notes:

[1] See Original Whistler List, Etchings, pg. 96, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Society of the Butterfly [Company of the Butterfly] was James McNeill Whistler's London business through which he sold his works.

[2] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Collection

Freer Gallery of Art Collection

Exhibition History

Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change (November 18, 2023 to May 4, 2024)

Previous custodian or owner

Company of the Butterfly (1897-1903) (C.L. Freer source)

Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

Data Source

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Artist

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

Date

ca. 1892-1893

Credit Line

Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Medium

Etching; ink on paper

Dimensions

H x W: 8.1 x 20 cm (3 3/16 x 7 7/8 in)

Type

Print