The Unsafe Tenement (The Old Farm)

James McNeill Whistler American

Not on view

Whistler found this dilapidated building during a summer tour of Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland. He carried sketchbooks, etching needles and copper plates, etching about six plates between mid-August and October. Such restraint suggests many preparatory sketches and careful planning before needle touched copper. Crumbling architecture is here given an unidealized individuality in a way that echoes how realist painters approached the human figure. In November 1858, Whistler included the print in his first published set, "Douze eau-fortes d'apres Nature" ("Twelve Etchings from Nature"), known as the "French Set." This impression belonged to Thomas Winans, a Baltimore friend who financed the artist's move to Paris in 1855; Winans kept the print in an album that descendants gave to the Museum.

The Unsafe Tenement (The Old Farm), James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London), Etching on tan chine on white wove paper (chine collé); third state of four (Glasgow)

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The Unsafe Tenement (The Old Farm), James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London), Etching on tan chine on white wove paper (chine collé); third state of four (Glasgow)
The Unsafe Tenement (The Old Farm), James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London), Etching on tan chine on white wove paper (chine collé); third state of four (Glasgow)

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