The Painter-Etcher Papers
The exhibition of etchings at the Hanover Gallery has been the occasion of one of those squabbles which amuse everybody—perhaps, even including the quarrellers themselves. Some etchings, exceedingly like Mr. Whistler’s in manner, “A Storm in an Æsthetic Teapot.”
The Cuckoo, April 11, 1881. but signed “Frank Duveneck,” were sent to the Painter-Etchers’ Exhibition from Venice. The Painter-Etchers appear to have suspected for a moment that the works were really Mr. Whistler’s; and, not desiring to be the victims of an easy hoax on the part of that gentleman, three of their members—Dr. Seymour Haden, Dr. Hamilton, and Mr. Legros—went to the Fine Art Society’s Gallery, in New Bond Street, and asked one of the assistants there to show them some of Mr. Whistler’s Venetian plates. From this assistant they learned that Mr. Whistler was under an arrangement to exhibit and sell his Venetian etchings only at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery; but, even if these Painter-Etchers really believed that “Frank Duveneck” was only another name for James Whistler, this information about the Fine Art Society’s arrangement with him need not have shaken that belief, for the nom de plume might easily have been adopted with the concurrence of the society’s leading spirits. Nor is it altogether certain that the Painter-Etchers did anything more than compare, for their own satisfaction as connoisseurs, the works of Mr. Whistler and “Frank Duveneck.” The motive of their doing so may have been misunderstood by the Fine Art Society’s assistant with whom they conferred.
Be that as it may, this assistant thought fit to repeat to Mr. Whistler what had passed, and also his own impressions as to the motive of the comparison and the inquiries which the Painter-Etchers had instituted. Whereupon Mr. Whistler has addressed a letter to Mr. Seymour Haden (who is, by the way, his brother-in-law), of which all that need be here said, is that it is extremely characteristic of Mr. Whistler.