System Number: 06106
Date: 4 December 1893
Author: Thomas Robert Way[1]
Place: London
Recipient: JW
Place: [Paris]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler W103
Document Type: ALS[2]
LITHOGRAPHIC PRINTING OFFICE,
21, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND, W. C.
LONDON,
Decr 4 1893
Dear Mr Whistler
I have posted to you, by book post, your 12 sets[3] of the five last lithographs. I have also sent you two extra impressions which will explain themselves. I should like you to look at the paper on which the seated figure[4] is printed[;] it gives a very good impression and is almost as silky as a Jap paper. We can get any quantity of it, some stouter than this sheet. I find the stump work, once on the stone, has a constant tendency [p. 2] to increase in tone, and requires very careful watching to keep it to its proper strength - I have now got Mr Marty's[5] paper, and his prints are nearly finished, we may forward them tomorrow evening. A funny incident occurred, last week. My father[6] went into the print shop[7] in Green St Leicester Sqr to the successors of Thibadeau[8] to enquire about one of your etchings in their window, seeing him generally interested in your work, they wanted to know if he were interested in the lithographs? if so, would like to shew him some, as yet, not shewn to anyone in London at all! much surprised of course! but would be very pleased to see. - a set of [p. 3] these last five[9]! You did not loose much time! But it was funny they should have dropped on him! wasn't it? Pretty well every other dealer in town knows him by sight. Of course het did not let on at all!
Trusting you will find these sets all right, and with kindest regards from us both to Mrs Whistler[10] & yourself.
I remain
Yours very Sincerely
Tom. R. Way.
J. McN. Whistler Esqre
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. Thomas Robert Way
Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), printer, lithographer and painter [more].
2. ALS
Published in Spink, Nesta R., The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler, gen. eds Harriet K. Stratis and Martha Tedeschi, Chicago, 1998, vol. 2, pp. 79-80, no. 66.
3. sets
JW had ordered these on 21 November (#03360).
4. seated figure
The Draped Figure, Seated (C.72).
5. Mr Marty's
André E. Marty (b. 1857), journalist, illustrator and print publisher [more]; 107 impressions of The Draped Figure, Seated (C.72) were printed by Way and issued with L'Estampe Originale, album IV, Paris, October-December 1893.
6. father
Thomas Way (1837-1915), lithographic printer [more].
7. print shop
Deprez and Gutekunst, 18 Green Street, Leicester Square, WC. Until 1890, 18 Green Street had been occupied by the printseller Alphonse Thibaudeau.
8. Thibadeau
Alphonse Wyatt Thibeaudau (ca 1840 - d.1892), print dealer [more].
9. five
JW had received some trial proofs from Way, all of which were approved on 21 November, and so these must have been the ones that Thomas Way was shown at Deprez & Gutekunst. JW continued to send lithographs to Deprez and Gutekunst: six lithographs priced at 2 gns. each, of which all but one were returned, was recorded on 5 February 1894, together with three impressions of Yellow House, Lannion (C.67) sold for 9 gns (#02704). Sixteen were sent on 27 February 1894 (#02704), including several Luxembourg and Vitré subjects. Fifteen were sent on 23 March 1894, mostly Chelsea lithographs but also Stéphane Mallarmé (C.60) (#02702). Five more were listed for 14 April 1894 and one, The Marketplace, Vitré (C.62), was marked to be sent (#13321). JW wrote to Gutekunst informing him of the dispatch of the fifteen lithographs and inquiring about the previous batch of prints he had sent for which he had received no acknowledgment; JW to Gutekunst, 23 March [1894], (#02702).
10. Mrs Whistler
Beatrix Whistler (1857-1896), née Beatrice Philip, artist [more].