Whistler as I knew him . the difficulty of procuring the righttemperature of a plate, and the wiping of it. Now,the wiping of one of Whistlers plates required quiteas much skill as the painting of a picture. No partof a plate was ever wiped quite clean: there werealways films of colour left. Whistler was most par-ticular in the smallest detail connected with the print-ing of a plate. He took as long a time to trim themargin of a proof as any other printer would havetaken to print it, He had a method of his own bywhich he cut away the margin and left a little tagupon which he placed his butterf
Whistler as I knew him . the difficulty of procuring the righttemperature of a plate, and the wiping of it. Now,the wiping of one of Whistlers plates required quiteas much skill as the painting of a picture. No partof a plate was ever wiped quite clean: there werealways films of colour left. Whistler was most par-ticular in the smallest detail connected with the print-ing of a plate. He took as long a time to trim themargin of a proof as any other printer would havetaken to print it, He had a method of his own bywhich he cut away the margin and left a little tagupon which he placed his butterfly. Over this cuttingaway of the margin Whistler was exceedingly particu-lar. I have often seen him work laboriously at a proofwith a knife on a piece of glass for a long time, care-fully following round the edge of it, just touching theplate mark, without even a ruler or any mechanicalmeans to procure a clean cut. I use no ruler, said TROUVILLE—BLUE AND SILVER From an oil-painting in the possession ofJ. J. Cowan, THE ETCHER 95 he, in answer to a question, because I wish the knifeto follow sympathetically the edge of the proof. Eventhe cutting of this paper, although you may not knowit, is vibrated and full of colour. There is just asgreat a difference between my trimming of a proofand the trimming of a professional cutter as there isin etching between a wiry line and a full rich one. No one was ever quite like Whistler in thisrespect — so exquisitely dainty and careful over thesmallest detail. Then, again, he always studied theartistic placing of his butterfly upon a proof, in orderto create the perfect balance of an etching. Hetaught me many a valuable lesson in this fact, Whistler seldom placed his butterfly on aproof without first saying to me, Now, Menpes,where do you think the butterfly is going this time ? It used to be a little joke between us, and after somemonths of habit I was invariably able to put myfinger on the spot where the butterfly would
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