43. James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903)

The Brothers

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Whistler, The Brothers

The Brothers

Fine, strong impression, one of thirty-one pulled by Goulding in 1905 under the auspices of Rosalind Birnie Philip, Whistler’s executrix (there were fifteen lifetime impressions printed by Way), on old laid paper with the watermark of D. & C. Blauw (Spink 55 or 56), and with full margins. The sheet, however, does not bear the usual stamp of the Goulding printings and just might be earlier. The image is of two blacksmiths in their workshop and, as in the earlier etching described above, the drawing focuses on the principal subject and gets sketchier as it proceeds outward from there. To Whistler, this was the secret of drawing. The work is a transfer lithograph with the additions of the second state made directly on the stone.