James Abbott McNeill Whistler RBA (1834 –1903) - Billingsgate 1859

James Abbott McNeill Whistler RBA (1834 –1903) -

Billingsgate 1859 (published 1878)

Etching with drypoint

Plate measures 22.5 x 15.2 cm

Frame measures 42.5 x 37 cm

This etching with drypoint entitled ‘Billingsgate 1859’,printed in black ink on modern medium weight laid paper; eighth state of nine, likely published in The Portfolio, an artistic periodical, edited by Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Volume 9, 1878, published by Seeley, Jackson and Halliday. [Kennedy 47; Glasgow 51].

Billingsgate Fish Market was the largest fish market in the world around the midpoint of the 19^th Century and was infamous for the coarse language of the fishmongers leading to "Billingsgate" becoming a byword for crude or vulgar language.

Whistler was active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the Great Britain and France. His father was a railroad engineer, and the family moved to Russia in 1842, he enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts there at the age eleven. The family also spent some time in England while his father worked in Russia, but eventually the family moved back to Connecticut, USA.

As young man he was enrolled at West Point Military Academy but failed a Chemistry exam, this meant he focused his artistic talents as a draftsman for the United States Coast Survey, work that he found boring and unfulfilling. In 1855 he moved to Paris and quickly settled in the Latin Quarter and the bohemian lifestyle available there at the time. He mixed in Avant Garde circles with the followers of Courbet and Baudelaire but eventually settled in London with frequent trips to Paris throughout his life.

This striking work is rich with black inking and fine detail. The paper has tanned over time with a warm brown hue but could be easily restored by a paper conservator. It is framed in a gilt metal frame and ready to hang.