Object Type: Print

Creation Place: North America, American

Dimensions:

Medium and Support: Drypoint on Japanese paper

Accession Number: 1992.0002.0023

Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil, Jr., in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil, Sr.

Whistler created "Soupe à Trois Sous" in Paris in late 1859 as an experiment with the technique of drypoint, a form of intaglio printmaking that largely had fallen into disuse after Rembrandt’s era. Unlike etching, in which acid creates the incisions on a plate, drypoint involves drawing with a steel or diamond point directly onto a bare, ungrounded, metal surface, most often copper. Therefore, drypoint is a more direct technique than etching, requiring fewer steps between the artist’s drawing on the plate and the production of the image. An early impression of a drypoint image is characterized by a soft, velvety line with a feathery burr, the term for the adjacent copper shards displaced by the needle. Drypoint images are extremely delicate, yielding only a few impressions before the lines lose their richness, and the painterly effects for which the medium is so highly valued.

The scene depicts a lower-class eatery that late into the night offered soup for 3 sous, a very inexpensive meal. The expanse of blank wall dominating the center weighs down the figures dispersed along the lower register of the composition. Whistler conveyed the fatigue among the tired workers by their poses and postures: hunched figures lean wearily over the table. Most of them are anonymous, their expressions hidden, with the exception of a single young man who peers out of the composition and directly engages the viewer. The deeply inked lines of his face and hair make the painterly, soft characteristics of the drypoint clearly evident in the MMFA's rich impression.

Fleeting Impressions: Prints by James McNeill Whistler, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 2006, catalogue entry 3