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Original lithograph printed in black ink on antique laid paper.
Signed on the stone with the artist’s butterfly monogram center left.
A superb impression of Spink’s third and final state of this scarce lithograph, printed after the removal from the stone of the tiny spot from within the area of highlight on the model’s left shoulder, from the edition of approximately 41 impressions printed by Frederick Goulding on March 30, 1904 (apart from the lifetime edition of approximately 25 printed by Way).
Catalog: Spink 73; Levy 75; Way 47.
4 ½ x 8 7/16 inches
Sheet Size: 9 x 14 1/8 inches
In excellent condition, printed on a sheet with full margins and deckled edges.
Provenance: ex-collection Rosalind Birnie Philip, the artist’s sister-in-law and sole executrix, bearing her collection stamp (Lugt 405), in brown ink verso, the presence of this round stamp indicates that the impression was printed posthumously from a surviving stone.
Collections in which impressions of this state of this lithograph can be found: Chicago Art Institute; Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow; Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor; The Brooklyn Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The above depiction of a studio model is one of Whistler’s “tanagra figures” – a work to be enjoyed simply for its grace of line and movement – part of a series of lithographs on which he began work in the early 1890’s as a departure from his highly successful rendering of scenes from everyday life.
