Etchings Institutions search term: dowdeswell
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) (). 15 An impression was lent by James Cox-Cox (ca 1849- d.1901) to the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901, 16 and one was shown at the Art and Industrial Exhibition in Wolverhampton in 1902.
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) (). This was acquired by Mrs Herbert F. Perkins (dates unknown) and given to the Art Institute of Chicago. Deman W. Ross (1852-1935) gave an impression to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1903 ().
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) (); George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) (, ); Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) (); Alfred Atmore Pope (1842-1913) () and Albert W. Scholle (1860-1917) ().
22: Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932) to Whistler, 10 April 1893, GUW #07214.
23: GUW #01259.
24: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 202).