James Abbott McNeill Whistler
(American, 1834–1903)
Little Venice, from the First Venice Set
Object Details
Artist
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Date
1880
Medium
Etching and drypoint printed in brown ink on thin laid paper
Dimensions
7 1/4 × 10 3/8 inches (18.4 × 26.4 cm)
Credit Line
Bequest of William P. Chapman, Jr., Class of 1895
Object
Number
56.392
As Canaletto had done for the British in the eighteenth century, Whistler was keen to supply his con(…)
As Canaletto had done for the British in the eighteenth century, Whistler was keen to supply his contemporaries with views of “La Serenissima.” Having desired to travel to Venice since his twenties, he planned finally to etch a series of plates of the city in 1876. This trip was again postponed, until bankruptcy ultimately forced him to Venice to execute a series of twelve etchings for the Fine Art Society of London in the fall of 1879. While in Venice, Whistler carried prepared plates about the city, using his needle to etch directly where and when he found his subjects. Whistler cleverly overstayed his intended working period by more than a year, returning to London in November 1880 with a stack of plates to be printed.
“Little Venice” is one of the last plates Whistler drew while in Venice; he etched it back in London, selectively moving the acid about the surface of the plate with a feather to achieve great subtlety in individual lines of the composition. The Johnson Museum’s impression shows that Whistler selectively wiped the plate during the printing process, leaving a film of ink that conveys the murky stillness of the lagoon in the foreground so that the far-off city levitates.
(Andrew C. Weislogel, “Mirror of the City: The Printed View in Italy and Beyond, 1450–1940,” catalogue accompanying an exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Stuart M. Blumin, and presented at the Johnson Museum August 11–December 23, 2012)
