PROVENANCE
Prints and a Few Drawings from Great Collections of the Past

  1. Master MR, Christ on the Cross
  2. Dürer, St. Bartholomew
  3. Dürer, Christ Before Caiaphas
  4. Raimondi, Philosophy
  5. Raimondi, Façade with Caryatids
  6. Beham, Job Conversing
  7. Beham, Satyr Sounding a Horn
  8. Beham, Peasant Couple Walking
  9. Caraglio, Martyrdom of St. Paul
  10. Aldegrever, Standard Bearer
  11. Pencz, Feeding the Hungry
  12. Pencz, Artemisia Preparing
  13. Falconetto, Tomb Surmounted
  14. Claesz, St. Peter Seated
  15. Treu, Noble Dancers
  16. Master FP, Hercules Killing
  17. Brun, February
  18. Solis, Arithmetria
  19. de Bruyn, The Circumcision
  20. Sadeler, Virgin and Child
  21. Goltzius, A Young Man
  22. Matham, The Planets
  23. Brizio, Extensive Landscape
  24. van de Velde, Fête Villageoise
  25. van de Velde, Backgammon
  26. van Uyttenbroek, Tobias
  27. van Uyttenbroek, Bacchus
  28. Rembrandt, The Small Lion Hunt
  29. Hollar, Woman with Headdress
  30. Saftleven, Dutch Peasant
  31. Ostade, Bust of a Peasant
  32. Stoop, A Grazing Horse
  33. Fyt, Set of Animals
  34. Bega, The Three Drinkers
  35. Anonymous, Landscape
  36. Nanteuil, Charles Benoise
  37. Nanteuil, Cardinal Mazarin
  38. Nanteuil, Pierre Seguier
  39. van Vliet, St. Jerome Sitting
  40. Cossin, Ornament Design
  41. Sirani, St. Eustace
  42. Somer, Hagar and Ishmael
  43. Daullé, La Muse Clio
  44. Tiepolo, The Holy Family
  45. MacArdell, Hannah, Mrs. Horneck
  46. Laurie, Elizabeth, Dutchess
  47. Denon, Village Scene
  48. Charlet, Les Français
  49. Pieraccini, Holy Family
  50. Daumier, Y n’y a rien comm’
  51. Daubigny, Les Ruines du Chateau
  52. Daubigny, Lever de Lune
  53. Meryon, Le Petit Pont
  54. Rops, La Poupée du Satyre
  55. Whistler, Old Hungerford Bridge
  56. Legros, Un Coin de Rivière
  57. Buhot, Frontispice
  58. Forain, La Rencontre
  59. Pennell, Hampton Court Palace
  60. Delâtre, Silhouette de Femme

55. James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903)

Old Hungerford Bridge

(click on image to print)
Whistler, Old Hungerford Bridge

Old Hungerford Bridge

Other Images:

Etching and drypoint, 1861, from 16 Etchings of the Thames, 134 x 208 mm., Kennedy 76 ii/iii. Very fine and early impression, before the smoke from the boat was outlined, on old, thin laid paper with large margins; slight wrinkling of the paper and a few brown dots in the margin. This is one of the less celebrated images from the Thames set, but it is no less brilliant in its subtle distinctions of focus, clear and detailed or soft and hazy, as determined by immediate atmospheric conditions. The supports of the bridge, for example, differ from one another in clarity due to mist and smoke and the foreground purposely lacks definition from the brilliance of light. The masterly arrangement of complex subject matter on the plate distinguished -- and still distinguishes -- Whistler from the host of other able etchers trying to do the same thing.

Provenance:
Otto Gerstenberg (Lugt 2785). Gerstenberg (1848-1935) was director of the Victoria Insurance Company in Berlin and, from about 1900, an avid collector of both old master and modern prints. Working largely through an agent, he bought widely (and expensively) at auctions of all the great collections, impressions of the best provenance. As some indication of the wealth of his collection, it contained virtually all the Dürer engravings and woodcuts, some fifty-one Schongauers, and most of the best and the rarest Rembrandts. During World War I, Gerstenberg managed to hide the collection in Switzerland, but after the war he felt obliged to sell it, hoping to keep it intact. That proved impossible, but ultimately most of the collection was sold through a number of dealers. However, the modern prints were not included, among them superb collections of Goya, Toulouse-Lautrec, Delacroix, Degas and Whistler. That remainder of the collection was stored in various places in Germany and Denmark, some of it, apparently, being lost in the Russian invasion of Germany toward the end of World War II. The rest was somehow dispersed to turn up here and there in sales and dealer catalogs. Their owner died in 1935, unaware of the fate of his great collection.