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

30  JAMES A. M.WHISTLER The Little Café au Bois . Lithograph on cream laid paper, 1894. 210x156 mm; 8 1 / 4 x6 1 / 4 inches, full margins. Edition of approximately only 30. Signed with the butterfly in pencil, lower left. Ex-collection unknown collector, ink stamp with the initials S.V.S. (Lugt 2368b, verso). Printed by Way, London. A superb impression of this extremely scarce lithograph. We have not found another lifetime impression, signed by the artist in pencil, at auction in the past 30 years and only one other posthumous impression of this subject at auction in the past 30 years. According to the printer Way, Whistler drew this nocturnal scene of men and women gathered at an outdoor café-chantant in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. Way 56; Levy 87; Spink 91. [2,500/3,500]