The Kitchen, from Douze eaux-fortes d’après nature

1858. [Paris]: Imp. Delatre. Rue St. Jacques. 171, [1858].

Etching and drypoint; second state of three (Glasgow); signed "Whistler" in the plate; black ink on buff laid chine paper. Plate: 157 x 225 mm. Sheet: 204 x 280 mm. Subtle 1 mm hole 1 mm beneath lower right margin of plate mark; faint mat shadow well outside the plate mark. Near fine.

§ One of Whistler's first published etchings; a woman at work in a rustic kitchen in the Alsace region of France. Second state of the etching, one of around three dozen identified. No impression of the first state has been located.

"This image of a rustic kitchen in Lutzelbourg, a town in Alsace, belongs to a group of etchings known as the "French Set." They were Whistler’s first published prints, issued in Paris in 1858 by Auguste Delâtre and formally titled "Douze eaux-fortes d’après nature" (Twelve Etchings from Nature). The twenty-one-year-old artist had moved to Paris from Washington, D.C., three years earlier. Encouraged by his British brother-in-law the amateur etcher Seymour Hayden, Whistler traveled through northeastern France and the Rhineland, sketching and etching several plates in situ. He completed the plate for this print after returning to Paris. The strong contrasts of light and shade demonstrate an appreciation for Dutch models and anticipate Whistler’s mature etchings." (The Met). A third state of the plate was reprinted by Whistler, reportedly in an edition of 50, and republished by the Fine Art Society in 1885. The plate was then cancelled. See Glasgow Whistler Etchings Project: 16. Kennedy No. 24. (Inventory #: 126387)