Etching and drypoint printed on Japanese paper, 1858
Etched on Whistler’s trip to the Rhine in 1858, this print was based on a graphite and watercolour drawing made in Saverne, Alsace, and annotated Place St Thomas.
This is one of a group of impressions of early plates in the Fitzwilliam that were probably printed at the same time on similar thick Japanese paper, and have remained together since. One of the other plates (Vauxhall Bridge) is dated 1861, so the group was probably not printed before that date, when ‘The French Set’ was reprinted by Delâtre for Serjeant Thomas’s exhibition. The varied wiping of the plate to create pools of shadow and highlight is typical of Delâtre’s ‘artistic printing’. He also printed this plate on blue paper.
Given by G. J. F. Knowles 1954
Collections record: P.274-1954
