Etchings Institutions search term: royal collection
Upright Venice | ||
Number: | 232 | |
Date: | 1879-1880 | |
Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
Size: | 255 x 180 mm | |
Signed: | butterfly at lower left (3-final) | |
Inscribed: | no | |
Set/Publication: | 'Second Venice Set', 1886 | |
No. of States: | 7 | |
Known impressions: | 39 | |
Catalogues: | K.205; M.202; W.172 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (39) |
PUBLICATION
Dowdeswell paid £2.10.0 for the printing of each dozen prints. Whistler delivered in all 1093 prints for the Second Venice Set 9
9: Dowdeswell to Whistler, invoice 16 July 1887, GUW #00891.
EXHIBITIONS
However, in 1883 both Upright Venice and Long Venice [211] were on the whole admired for Whistler's draughtsmanship, his 'skill with the point'. 11 The Saturday Review criticised the figures 'not much more solid or careful' than in Wool Carders [195], and added that 'the water - again a long stretch - is, as compared with other works, poorly and faintly indicated.' 12 On the other hand, John Forbes-Robertson appreciated the effect of the details: 'gondolas darting about in the quiet lagoon, while the city rises stately and grand in the distance.' 13
Print dealers' shows in later years include H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 and (twice) in 1903; Obach & Co. in London in 1903 and F. Keppel & Co., New York in 1902 and 1904. 14
Upright Venice was exhibited at a show organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900, lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (

After Whistler's death, two impressions were shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, and others at the Whistler Memorial Exhibitions: Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent his to the Boston show in 1904, and others were exhibited in London (lent from the Royal Collection) and Paris in 1905. 17
10: London FAS 1883 (cat. no. 19).
11: Anon., 'Mr. Whistler', Whitehall Review, 22 February 1883 (GUL PC25/35).
12: Anon., 'Mr. Whistler's Exhibition', Saturday Review, 24 February 1883 (GUL PC 25/32).
13: 'Mr. Whistler, His Arrangement in White and Yellow, His Etchings and His Catalogue', Pictorial World, 31 March 1883 (GUL PC 8/8).
14: See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
15: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 152).
16: Glasgow 1901 (cat. no. 227).
17: New York 1904a (cat. nos. 174a, b); Boston 1904 (cat. no. 137); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 172).
SALES & COLLECTORS
Most impressions were sold after 1886 by and through the publishers, Messrs Dowdeswell and Alphonse Wyatt Thibaudeau (ca 1840- d.1892). The latter sold a set through H. Wunderlich & Co. to Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) in 1890 (






At auction at Christie’s, 27 November 1888 (lot 171) one was bought by Obach & Co. for £2.18.0. An impression was sold at auction from the collection of the late Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891) in 1892 and bought by the London print dealer Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) for £5.10.0. 20 The complete set 'Venice, Second Series' 'in a folio' owned by Mrs Edward Fisher of Abbotsbury, Newton Abbot, was sold in 1897 and bought by Colnaghi's for £82.0.0. 21
20: Sotheby's, 3 March 1892 (lot 267).
21: Christie’s, 13-14 July 1897 (lot 316).
Whistler selected a strong impression in black ink for a friend, Mrs. H. Roosevelt, who had been introduced by Ross Revillon Winans (1850-1912) (


Mansfield in 1909 mentioned his state 2 as being in the 'Benedict, Mansfield, and Vanderbilt Collections.' 24 Apart from Henry Harper Benedict (1844-1935) and George Washington Vanderbilt (1862-1914), other American collectors included Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (






22: Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) to Whistler, 10 April 1893, GUW #07214.
23: GUW #01259.
24: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 202).