Soupe a Trois Sous

Soupe à trois sous

Dundee Art Galleries & Museum: 272-1987-320

Artist: Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

Date: 1859

State: 1/1

Size: 15.2 x 22.2 cm

Medium: Etching

Details Etching. Black ink on ivory coloured wove paper – possibly Asian. ‘Whistler’ in centre. Some evidence of retroussage. Over fifty impressions are known.
Description Detailed information concerning the Whistler prints held in The Orchar Collection comes from the University of Glasgow’s excellent Whistler Etchings Project. (Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2012, on-line website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk). Considerable thanks are due to Professor MacDonald for allowing us to use their research in these entries.

Sketched in Paris, Soupe à trois sous depicts a night scene in a run-down restaurant. The title, translated as “soup for three sous”, is a likely reference to the café’s cheapness since a ‘sous’ was a cheap coin. The figure on the left, gazing out at the viewer, is the proprietor – a soldier by the name of Martin who had lost his Légion d’honneur for misconduct. Its original title was Café des Pieds Monilles which actually refers to the Café des Pieds-Humides (‘Café of the Wet Feet’) so named due to the fact it water would run through the café when it rained.
Catalogue Entry
  1. Edward G. Kennedy, The Etched Work of Whistler. New York, Grolier Club, 1910 (49)
  2. Howard Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Chicago, Caxton Club, 1909 (49)
  3. Ralph Thomas, A Catalogue of the Etchings and Drypoints of J.A M. Whistler. London, John Russell Smith, 1874 (25)
  4. Sir Frederick Wedmore, Whistler’s Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue. London, Thibaudeau, 1886 (27)
  5. Whistler Etchings Project (64)
Other Collections (UK)
  1. British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London
  2. Hunterian Art Gallery Collections, University of Glasgow, Glasgow
  3. Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
  4. Victoria and Albert Museum: Print Collection, London

See the Whistler Etchings Project for a list of impressions.
References
  1. Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists. Paris, Gründ, 2006
  2. Rodney K. Engen, Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and Their Works. Cambridge, Chadwyck-Heley, 1979
  3. Kenneth M. Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1977
  4. Katharine A. Lochnan, The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1984
  5. Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995
  6. William Rough, ‘A cluster of butterflies: James Guthrie Orchar and his collection of Whistler etchings and drypoints’, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, Volume 16, 2011-12

 

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