Lagoon - Noon | ||
Number: | 209 | |
Date: | 1879/1880 | |
Medium: | etching and drypoint | |
Size: | 127 x 204 mm | |
Signed: | butterfly at lower left (3-final) | |
Inscribed: | no | |
Set/Publication: | 'Second Venice Set', 1886 | |
No. of States: | 3 | |
Known impressions: | 30 | |
Catalogues: | K.216; M.213; W.186 | |
Impressions taken from this plate (30) |
PUBLICATION
8: Dowdeswell to Whistler, invoice 16 July 1887, GUW #00891.
EXHIBITIONS
"What the art of Mr. Whistler yields is a tertium quid." Sidney Colvin.
REFLECTION: The quid of sweet and bitter fancy.
"As we have hinted, the series does not represent any Venice that we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?" 'Arry in the "Times."
'REFLECTION: The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them because he knoweth not how to go to the City. '
9
Frequently the earlier reviews reprinted in the 1883 catalogue attracted more attention from the journalists of 1883 than the works themselves, and Lagoon: Noon, being towards the end of the show, attracted no other attention at all. After repeating Wedmore's acid comment, the Sunday Times, however, added 'One thing is certain, Mr. Whistler has achieved that popularity which is seldom accorded to failures, and is able to stand without aid, proffered or otherwise.' 12
Finally, having stabbed his foes, the critics, with an assortment of quotations, Whistler turned to the business of printing his etchings, and did not actually exhibit them very much after this. He concentrated on selling, and it was his patrons who organised some exhibitions of the prints.
10: Anon. [H.Quilter], 'Mr.Whistler's "Venice" at the Fine-Art Society, New Bond Street', Spectator, vol. 53, no. 2737, 11 December 1880, pp. 1586-7 (GUL PC4/13, 4/82).
11: 'Mr Whistler's Etchings of Venice', Times, London, 25 December 1880, p. 4.
12: Sunday Times, 18 February 1883 (GUL PC 25/22).
13: Chicago 1900 (cat. nos. 166, 166a).
14: See REFERENCES: EXHIBITIONS.
15: Boston 1904 (cat. no. 146); New York 1904a (cat. no. 188); London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 186).
SALES & COLLECTORS
16: GUW #13643
Shortly before his death, the artist sold an impression on 20 April 1903 to another London print dealer, Robert Dunthorne (b. ca 1851) for a comparatively high price - £10.10.0. 18 Whistler also bequeathed one to Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) from whom it passed to the University of Glasgow ().
17: Wunderlich's to Whistler, GUW #07287.
18: 20 April 1903, GUW #13041.
19: Also Christie’s, 27 November 1888 (lot 185) bought by 'McGrath', £2.2.0.