James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Limehouse, 1878
Monogrammed with the butterfly in the stone; signed 'Whistler" in pencil on the support sheet.
Lithotint wih scraping and incising on a prepared half tine ground.
17.1 x 27.3 cm
6 3/4 x 10 3/4 in
6 3/4 x 10 3/4 in
Price upon application
Way 4, Levy 8,9, Spink, Stratis, Tedeschi 7.ii. Printed by Way, London published by Boussod, Valadon, and Co., Paris. Published in the Notes portfolio. Edition 30. Way lists It was...
Way 4, Levy 8,9, Spink, Stratis, Tedeschi 7.ii. Printed by Way, London published by Boussod, Valadon, and Co., Paris. Published in the Notes portfolio. Edition 30. Way lists It was executed on Japan paper with a white wove support sheet. Whistler’s Limehouse (Way 4; Chicago 7) stands as a pivotal moment in the 19th-century revival of artistic lithography. Drawn on the stone while on a barge in the Thames, it is one of the artist's earliest and most successful experiments with lithotint, a challenging wash-based process that allowed him to achieve the atmospheric, tonal "nocturne" quality for which his paintings are celebrated.
In this second state, Whistler meticulously scraped and incised the stone to refine the hazy London sky and the shimmering reflections of the docklands. By manipulating the half-tint ground, he captured the gritty industrial elegance of the Limehouse shipyards with a painterly delicacy that standard line-drawing could not provide.
In this second state, Whistler meticulously scraped and incised the stone to refine the hazy London sky and the shimmering reflections of the docklands. By manipulating the half-tint ground, he captured the gritty industrial elegance of the Limehouse shipyards with a painterly delicacy that standard line-drawing could not provide.
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