The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

San Biagio; flesh-colour and grey dates from 1880.

San Biagio; flesh-colour and grey, The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

The pastel is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 818). See HISTORY for updated provenance.

Images

Subject

Site

San Biagio; flesh-colour and grey, The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

San Giorgio Maggiore, photograph, Archives of the Whistler Paintings Project, Glasgow University Library, 1990s

Venice, Italy. The view south-east across the bay from the Riva degli Schiavoni to the Riva San Biagio. ¹ It is a quiet area, in the Castello, the most eastern part of the city.

Technique

Technique

San Biagio; flesh-colour and grey, The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

Discussed in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 818).

History

Provenance

• Date unknown: owned by Robert Woods Bliss (1875–1962), Dunbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
• Date unknown: owned by William Rolfe Jr.
• 1962: sold by Steven Juvelis (1921-1994), Marblehead, MA, to Vose, Boston dealers, on 10 April, and by them to a private collector, on 12 April 1962;
• Date unknown: sold through Meg Newhouse, Newhouse Galleries, New York dealers, to a private collector;
• 1992: bequeathed by Julian Wood Glass Jr (1910-1992) to The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

Further details are given in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 818).

Exhibitions

• 1881: Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 9) as 'San Biagio; flesh colour and grey'.
• 1889: possibly “Notes” – “Harmonies” – “Nocturnes”, H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, 1889 (cat. no. unknown).

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 818) as 'San Biagio; flesh-colour and grey'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 9).

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Mr Whistler's Pastels', Athenaeum, no. 2780, 5 February 1881 , p. 206.

Books on Whistler

• Grieve, Alastair, Whistler's Venice, New Haven and London, 2000, pp. 168, 170, repr. pl. 217, view repr. pl. 218.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001, p. 101, 110, repr. pl. 117.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, repr. f.p. 52.

Websites

• The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley website.