Upright Venice

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

1879-80

Etching on wove paper with illegible watermark

254 x 178 mm.

Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Signed in pencil in margin with a small butterfly and: imp; also in Whistler's hand and crossed out: 1st proof. La Salute; and: This is Upright Venice: Trial proof.

Across the Grand Canal can be seen the domes of Santa Maria della Salute. The etching is reversed. The vertical format and very high placement of the image reflect the strong influence of Japanese design on Whistler. [Commentary continued below]

Detail

Formatting by George P. Landow.

Text from Getscher. The Stamp of Whistler, p. 72.

Commentary by Robert W. Getscher

In this state Upright Venice is very similar to one of the pastels Whistler exhibited in 1881 at the Fine Art Society, TheBrown Morning-Winter (no. 53, ill. in a thumbnail sketch by Thomas Way in his Memories, facing p. 52). The etching and pastel both depict the same distant view, but in Way's redrawing the church dominates the horizon. Also there are gondolas and mooring posts in the foreground. There is an etching by Frank Duveneck, Salute (Poole 6), that is al- most an exact copy of the pastel as Way drew it, except that Duveneck's foreground is as empty as in Whistler's etching. Since the image in Duveneck's etching is also reversed, he too was working from nature. It is possible that the large size of the church in the works by Duveneck and Way is due to a trick of memory. In the act of recalling Whistler's image the recognizable church grew, while the less defined and less memorable horizon shrank in vagueness. Because of their similarity, Whis- tler's initial designs for Upright Venice and the pastel Brown Morning must date from the winter of 1879-80, before Duveneck arrived in Venice, therefore he certainly could have seen them both.

The weight of the pencil varies in the inscriptions, which must have been made at different times. Certainly it was signed long after the impression was pulled in Venice. It is very cleanly printed, better than could be done on the press owned by Otto Bacher. Perhaps a half-dozen or more impressions of this state exist. [The Stamp of Whistler, p. 72].

References

Getscher, Robert W. The Stamp of Whistler. Exhibition catalogue. Oberlin, Ohio: Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1977. Catalogue number 40.

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Last modified 11 January 2012