2. James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903)

The Rag Gatherers

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Whistler, The Rag Gatherers

The Rag Gatherers

Etching, 1858-61, 153 x 89 mm., Kennedy 23 v/v. Fine impression on thin laid paper, typical of early impressions of The Thames Series etchings (1859-61), with good margins; some old glue stains at the sheet edges. The Rag Gatherers was an independent plate, not part of The French Set, though probably French in subject matter and certainly in inspiration. Originally, the image focused entirely on the rag-hung doorway, but in 1861, the artist, dissatisfied with the plate, added the two figures in the interior. Despite its debt to Jacque, Millet and Bonvin, as well as others, the plate shows what would become one of Whistler's greatest preoccupations: the frame within a frame and the construction of three-dimensional space by receding alternations of dark and light.