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Mairie, Loches

Mairie, Loches

Etching printed on Dutch(?) ‘antique’ laid paper trimmed by the artist, 1888

On his honeymoon tour to the Loire and Touraine in the autumn of 1888, Whistler made his largest group of etchings at Loches, with a total of eleven plates. He generally referred to the etchings of this tour as his ‘Renaissance lot’ because of the details of French Renaissance architecture that caught his eye. The subjects were generally portrayed as though glimpsed down backstreets and alleys, conjuring the sense of a traveller discovering a new town, or an artist discovering the picturesque away from standard tourist views. The etchings were not published as a set. Relatively few impressions were printed, the first of them sent to the Fine Art Society on 27 March 1889. The views of Loches proved the most popular.

Bequeathed by G. J. F. Knowles 1959

Collections record: P.88-1959

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