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James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903
The Doorway, 1879-80signed with the butterfly and inscribed 'imp.' in pencil to margin; printed in dark brown/warm black ink on laid paper, trimmed at the platemark leaving a signature tabetching and drypointan impression in the ninth state (of twenty), published by The Fine Art Society in Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (the ‘First Venice Set’), 1880, no. 511 ½ x 8 inches (29.2 x 20 cm)This is one of the most complex of the Venice prints and went through twenty states; the edition was not completed until after the artist’s death. The work was first...This is one of the most complex of the Venice prints and went through twenty states; the edition was not completed until after the artist’s death. The work was first exhibited at The Fine Art Society in December 1880 in 'Etchings of Venice' (no.5).
The Fine Art Society’s commission for a series of etchings in Venice was a pivotal event in Whistler’s career. Coming in 1879, shortly after his bankruptcy, it provided him with an escape from London and the humiliations he had suffered. The view shows the Palazzo Gussoni, just south of the Ponte San Antonio on the Rio de la Fava near the Doge’s Palace. The Renaissance door frames a chairmaker’s workshop; chairs are seen hanging from the ceiling of the dark interior, with timber stacked to left. The deeply-bitten detail of the ironwork and carvings contrasts with the vertically wiped film of ink left on the bottom of the plate to convey the reflections in the canal.Provenance
P. & D. Colnaghi & Co, London; Thomas Neilson Brown; The Fine Art Society, London, 2007; private collection, England
Exhibitions
Selected exhibitions:
The Fine Art Society, J. McNeill Whistler: Venice, etchings in drypoint, London, 1880 (cat. no. 5, a different impression);
Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1889 (cat. no. 419, a different impression);
International Exhibition, Glasgow Art Galleries, Glasgow, 1901 (cat. no. 225, a different impression);
The Fine Art Society, James McNeill Whistler: The Embroidered Curtain, London, 2007, no. 24 (this impression)
Literature
F. Wedmore, Whistler's Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue (London, 1886), no. 154; H. Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Chicago 1909), no. 185; E.G. Kennedy, The Etched Work of Whistler (New York 1910), no. 188; M.F. MacDonald, G. Petri, M. Hausberg, and J. Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, (Glasgow 2011), on-line website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk, no. 193
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