The Adam and Eve Old Chelsea

The ‘Adam and Eve’, Old Chelsea

Dundee Art Galleries & Museum: 272-1987-317

Artist: Whistler, James Abbott McNeill

Date: 1878

State: 3/3

Size: 17.8 x 30.5 cm

Medium: Etching and Drypoint

Details Etching and drypoint. Black ink on dark ivory coloured laid paper.Butterfly signature in top centre left. Other ninety 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.

The ‘Adam and Eve’, Old Chelsea was published by Hogarth, London print dealers, in 1878.

On the buildings can been seen the names ‘Old Ferry Wharf, J. Johnson, Coal Merchant’ and ‘The Adam and Eve, Wine and Spirit Establ.’ The ‘Adam and Eve’, located in Chelsea, was a popular inn recently demolished to make way for the Chelsea Embankment. Katharine Lochnan notes that it seems likely that Whistler used photographs of the area, taken by James Hedderly, to instruct his etching.
Exhibited Dundee An impression was exhibited at the Dundee Fine Art Exhibition, Albert Institute in 1879 (West Gallery, No. 1172, no price) and either already in Orchar’s collection or subsequently bought by him. Dundee Fine Art Exhibition Catalogue 1879, The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum.
Catalogue Entry
  1. Edward G. Kennedy, The Etched Work of Whistler. New York, Grolier Club, 1910 (175)
  2. Howard Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Chicago, Caxton Club, 1909 (172)
  3. Sir Frederick Wedmore, Whistler’s Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue. London, Thibaudeau, 1886 (144)
  4. Whistler Etchings Project (182)
Other Collections (UK)
  1. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham
  2. British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London
  3. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
  4. Hunterian Art Gallery Collections, University of Glasgow, Glasgow
  5. Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
  6. National Maritime Museum, 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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