Kidwelly Castle (Le Château de Kidwelly)

Seymour Haden was the unlikely combination of a surgeon and an etcher. Although he pursued a very successful medical career, he is mostly remembered for his etched work as well as for his writings on etching. He was one of a group of artists, including James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), whose passionate interest in the medium led to the so-called etching revival, a period that lasted well into the twentieth century. The extolling of etching for its inherent spontaneous qualities reached its pinnacle during this time. While the line of the etching needle, Haden wrote, was "free, expressive, full of vivacity," that of the burin was "cold, constrained, uninteresting," and "without identity."
View of a castle in the distance; trees at left, mountains in background.
" '...the pride of Kidwelly is its great castle, which was built in the late eleveth or early twelfth century by William de Londres, and rebuilt about 1270 by Chaworth family. It is partly concentric; and its ruins rank in extent with those of Pembroke and Caerphilly.' [Maxwell Fraser, Wales: The Country (London, 1952), II, 292]. This plate was sketched while Haden was waiting for a train.
State IV (D1,H1).Published in Études à l'eau-forte (headpiece for Introduction). Additional burnishing of the etched annotations partially removed in state II, most notably the removal of writing at the right of the drypoint signature. During the scraping several light scratches were made in the lower right, the most visible a horizontal check approximately 13 mm. from bottom and 55 mm. from right."
[Source: Schneiderman, p. 91]
"Published States: First.-Two figures lightly bitten added to the right. Published as a headpiece in the text of Études à l'eau-forte.Sketched from the railway station while waiting for the train."
[Source: Harrington, p. 13]