Soupe à trois sous

1859

Not on view

The title of this print translates as soup for three pennies and indicates that the men shown sit in a cheap café or bar (notes left by Whistler suggest it is the Café des Pieds-Humides ('Café of the Wet Feet') in Paris). Soon after making this etching, Whistler moved to London, took lodgings south of Tower Bridge, then recorded a similar scene in an etching titled "Longshore Men"). Black bottles on the tables here, near men who slouch or sleep, evoke the addictive properties of alcohol and the signature, etched at upper center on an otherwise unadorned wall, reads like a fragment of graphiti.

Artwork Details

Title: Soupe à trois sous
Artist: James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London)
Date: 1859
Medium: Etching, printed in black ink on medium weight ivory laid paper; only state (Glasgow)
Dimensions: plate: 5 15/16 x 8 15/16 in. (15.1 x 22.7 cm)
sheet: 7 5/8 x 12 1/4 in. (19.4 x 31.1 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917
Object Number: 17.3.42
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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The artist's butterfly in an enlarged version with a forked tail

James McNeill Whistler

19th century

Reading, James McNeill Whistler American, Lithograph with scraping; printed in black ink on grayish chine mounted on ivory wove paper; fourth state of four (Chicago) — Reading
James McNeill Whistler
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Windsor (Memorial), James McNeill Whistler American, Drypoint; third state of four (Glasgow); printed in dark brown ink on ivory laid paper — Windsor (Memorial)
James McNeill Whistler
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Early Morning, James McNeill Whistler American, Lithotint with scraping, on a prepared half-tint ground, printed in black ink on cream wove paper; third state of four (Chicago) — Early Morning
James McNeill Whistler
1878

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