James Abbott McNeill Whistler. 1834-1903.
Tête-à-Tête in the Garden. 1894. Lithograph. Way 54, Levy 85, Tedeschi, Stratis and Spink 90. 8 x 6 1/2(sheet 10 7/8 x 8 1/2). Edition of 25 lifetime impressions plus a few proofs recorded by Way, and 30 posthumous impressions printed by Goulding in 1904. The stone was cancelled. Printed on ivory laid paper from an antique volume, numbered 178 recto and 177 verso, lower right. A very good lifetime impression of this extremely scarce print. Signed with the butterfly in the stone. $6,500.
According to Joseph Pennell, the figures seated in the garden at Whistler's home at 110, rue de Bac, Paris, are Ethel Birnie Philip, Whistler's sister-in-law, and her husband Charles Whibley.
According to Tedeschi, Stratis and Spink "Whistler wrote to the New York dealer Edward Kennedy sending him a list of 'new and beautiful lithographs' that were to be mailed to New York from Paris two days later. Among the prints in the shipment were two impressions of Tête-à-Tête in the Garden. As far as can be determined, the Ways never reprinted the lithograph after the original set of twenty-five impressions (plus a few proofs) was pulled in July 1894." (pages 277, 279).
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