The Dyer

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

1880

Etching

305 x 240 mm

Signed in the plate, lower left, with a butterfly. Watermark: shield, two lions; brown ink. Trimmed and signed on the tab with a medium-sized butterfly and: imp.

An impression was exhibited in February 1883 at the Fine Art Society, Etchings and Dry-points. Venice. Second Series, no. II.

Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Click on image to enlarge it

Formatting by George P. Landow. Text from Getscher. The Stamp of Whistler, p. 41.

Commentary by Robert W. Getscher

The Dyer, which depicts an old man rinsing dyed cloth in the backwater of a canal, is one of Whistler's most handsome Venetian prints. Here there is maximum vignetting, so that the window is hardly delineated. The large but indistinct figure of the dyer breaks across the shadowy confines of the doorway; inside only a few objects emerge from the rich darkness.

One of the problems Whistler faced after his return to London was to decide which of his fifty plates should form part of the dozen the Fine Art Society had commissioned. According to Thomas Way Whistler seriously considered The Dyer as a possibility for this group, but later rejected it for The Door-way. Though it was never published. Whistler still must have liked The Dyer, for it is probably the most common of the unpublished Venetian prints, existing in a dozen or more impressions. The powerful freedom of this etching would have seemed less attractive in 1880, when even the grace of The Dyer was questioned. The etched interior shadows of The Dyer contrast beautifully with the drypoint ones found in The Door-way, but in the end the old man was almost too picturesque to include with the rest of the "First Venice Set." He overshadows the technical beauties of the etching with a bit of human interest so carefully eliminated from most of the other Venetian plates. In the final and unrecorded fifth state of this plate, of which there is an impression in Glasgow, Whistler replaced the old man with a less picturesque, and less interesting, younger one, who tugs vigorously at his cloth. [The Stamp of Whistler, p. 78].

References

Getscher, Robert W. The Stamp of Whistler. Exhibition catalogue. Oberlin, Ohio: Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1977. Catalogue number 47.

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Last modified 11 January 2012