Newspaper-Stall, Rue de Seine

Object Details

• Artist

  James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

• 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)

• Origin

  United States

• Credit Line

  Gift of Charles Lang Freer

• Type

  Print

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

  There are restrictions for re-using this media. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1900s, 1880s

• Name

  Company of the Butterfly, Freer, Charles Lang

• Place

  United States

• Topic

  Charles Lang Freer collection, Art, Architecture, American Art, Store front, Cities and towns, Etching (printing process), Business

• Culture

  Americans

• Object Type

  Prints