The Unsafe Tenement (The Old Farm)

James McNeill Whistler

1858 · Etching on tan chine on white wove paper (chine collé); third state of four (Glasgow) · Drawings and Prints

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.

Artist

James McNeill Whistler

Date

1858

Medium

Etching on tan chine on white wove paper (chine collé); third state of four (Glasgow)

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Margaret C. Buell, Helen L. King, and Sybil A. Walk, 1970