The Whistler Book

Sadakichi Hartmann

Published by L. C. Page & Company, Boston, 1910

About this Item

Stated First Impression. First Edition. 'A Monograph of the Life and Position in Art of James McNeill Whistler, together with a Careful Study of his more Important Works.' With fifty-seven reproductions. You can see the covers in the photos. They are quite clean, only a few light spots. The front cover is unusual, with a slightly raised gilt design of a picture frame around a portrait of the artist from a painting by Boldini. The top page edge is also gilt. The middle and bottom page edges are deckled or rough-cut. They did an excellent job. The cover edges and corners are in very good condition, no rubbing, quite unusual for a book published in 1910. The top edge of the spine does have a little bit of wear (second photo), the bottom edge a tiny bit. A couple of the letters in 'Page' and 'Boston' at the bottom of the spine are partly rubbed away. The book is square and the spine is straight. The binding of the pages is solid. I did see just a few instances of a very slight space at the juncture between facing pages, all of these pages tightly bound from top to bottom. Both covers are nicely, tightly bound with unworn junctures. The pages are exceptionally clean. Scrolling through, I found only one small, light tan spot at the margin of a page. There is a very small tan spot on the bottom page edge, and a little tan spot can be seen just peeking over the bottom edge of four early pages. I also saw two facing pages that have a tanned area tracing the shape of a piece of paper that had been left between the pages. That is also the case with the front inside cover and front end paper, a light tan tracing of something loose that was left between the two, the exact same shape on both. The fifty-seven illustrations are in very nice condition, very clean. They are on semi-glossy paper, but surprisingly there is no foxing. I didn't see any foxing anywhere in the book. The frontispiece is in perfect condition. It's from the same painting as the one on the front cover, and it is protected by a tissue guard which is very clean and in very good shape. All of the pages appear to be in very nice condition. All the edges look very good, very nicely shaped. I didn't see any conspicuous creasing, no placeholder creases, no turned-down corners. There are no markings in the book. There are no attachments of any kind. The front end paper contains a signature of a G.E. Coleman, dated 1911. There is no other writing to be found anywhere else in the book. Seller Inventory # 005217

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Whistler Book

Publisher: L. C. Page & Company, Boston

Publication Date: 1910

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition