Sale 2454 - 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, September 19, 2017

25 c JAMES A. M.WHISTLER The Beggars . Etching and drypoint printed in dark, brownish black on antique, cream laid paper, 1879-80. 307x211 mm; 12 1 / 8 x8 1 / 4 inches. MacDonald’s seventeenth state (of 17). Signed and dated “Mar 27 1903” by the printer, Frederick Goulding, in pen and brown ink, verso. Strasburg Lily watermark. From Twelve Etchings . A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this extremely scarce etching. This is one of the larger etchings in the first “Venice Set,” made on a plate obtained directly from a Venetian craftsman (not one brought by Whistler from London). The view is through a relatively dark passageway from the Corte de la Carozze to the Campo Santa Margarita. Whistler reworked the figures several times after returning to London. Kennedy 194; Glasgow 190. [8,000/12,000] 26  JAMES A. M.WHISTLER Traghetto . Etching printed in black on antique, cream laid paper, 1880. 214x303 mm; 8 1 / 2 x12 inches, small to narrow margins. MacDonald’s third state (of 4), before the further work on the window at the left and with the butterfly lower left distinct, an early working proof with the scene partially completed. Ex-collection Harris G. Whittemore (Lugt 1384a; according to Lugt, Whittemore had an unrivaled collection of Rembrandt and Whistler etchings. The majority of Whittemore’s Whistler etchings were purchased en masse from the Howard Mansfield collection in 1919); and Colnaghi, London, with their stock number in pencil verso. A very good, early impression of this exceedingly scarce etching. We have found only one other impression of this etching at auction in the past 30 years. Kennedy 190; Glasgow 231. [5,000/8,000] 25