The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Venice etchings probably dates from between 1880 and 1883 and was signed in 1886/1887.

Venice etchings, private collection

This is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 837).

Images

Subject

Description

Venice etchings, private collection

The top row shows, from left to right, the etchings The Little Venice [238], The Palaces [223], The Beggars [190], LThe Little Lagoon [216]. The bottom row is less clear, but may represent The Traghetto, No. 2 [233] and The Two Doorways [221] with one between them that is indecipherable.

Site

The etchings showed scenes in Venice, Italy, but the drawing was made on Whistler's return.

Technique

Composition

Venice etchings, private collection

The sketches are very rough, but could have been used in the selection or exhition of the first set of Venice etchings. The top row shows, from left to right, the etchings The Little Venice [238], The Palaces [223], The Beggars [190], LThe Little Lagoon [216]. The bottom row may show The Traghetto, No. 2 [233] and The Two Doorways [221] with one between them that is indecipherable.

Conservation History

It was placed by the first owner in an album of drawings and autographs.

History

Provenance

• 1887/1888: given to Mary Gladys Storey (1886-1978), the daughter of George Adolphus Storey, RA (1834-1919);
• 1978: passed to her nephew, Charles Monteith;
• 1980: sold in August through Peter Rose to Abbott and Holder, London art dealers;
• 1987: sold to a private collector.

Gladys Storey obtained drawings by her father and his friends, including Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911), George Clausen (1852-1944), Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), and William Powell Frith (1819-1909), and put them in an album. Some were done specially for the album but Whistler's clearly was not.

Exhibitions

Venice etchings, private collection

The sketches are very rough, and were never exhibited, but could have been used in the selection of the first set of Venice etchings, or for their first exhition, Etchings & Drypoints - Venice. Second Series, Fine Art Society, London, 1883.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 837) as 'Venice etchings'.

Books, General

• Storey, Gladys, All Sorts of People, London, 1929, p. 86.

Catalogues 1906-Present

SALE:

• Abbot & Holder, London, 1986 (cat. no. 320) as 'A butterfly signature with a few suggestions of sketches'.