Beschreibung:

JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER (AMERICAN 1834- 1903) A VENETIAN CANAL, (M. 0754) Chalk and pastel on brown paper 30 x 19cm (11¾ x 7¼ in.) Executed circa 1879-80. Provenance: The collection of Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) The collection of Walter Hamilton Hilton Jessop (1853-1917) by 1906 Sale, Christie's, London, 3 March 1978, lot 101 Thomas Agnew & Son Ltd., London, where purchased in 1978 A Private Collection Exhibited: Kunstring, Rotterdam, Whistler, October - November 1906, No. 28 Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Aquarellen, Pastels, Teekingen, Etsen, Lithographien en een Schilderij door James McNeill Whistler No. 28 New York, Coe Kerr Gallery Inc., 19 October - 16 November, Boston, Athenaeum, 23 November - 18 December 1982, Americans in Venice, No. 3 London, Bankside Gallery, Visions of Venice, 1 November - 2 December 1990 Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, 17 October 2003 - 18 January 2004 Valencia, The Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM), Whistler-Music, 21 July - 25th September 2005, No. 74 Riehen/Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Venice from Canaletto and Turner to Monet, 28 September 2008 - 25 January 2009, no number. Literature: Studio, vol. XXXI, May 1904, p.280, illustrated The Studio Whistler Portfolio, London, 1905, illustrated New York, Coe Kerr Gallery Inc., Americans in Venice, 1982, No. 3, pp. 15, 24, illustrated (the wrong way around) M. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours, New Haven, 1995, No. 754, p. 276, illustrated A Grieve, Whistler's Venice, New Haven, 2000, p. 62, ill., pl. 53 M. MacDonald, Palaces in the Night; Whistler in Venice, Aldershot & California, 2001, p. 153 M. Schwander, ed, Venice from Canaletto and Turner to Monet, 2008, pp. 102, 220 M. MacDonald, G. Petri, James McNeill Whistler The paintings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2020, website at ., no. M.0754. Engraved: As a lithograph, by T.R. Way for Studio, vol. XXXI, May 1904. The present view with its sophisticated combination of black outlines and restrained areas of colour, shows the entrance to the Rio de la Do Torre, one of several, small, narrow, straight rii (the smaller canals) in the Sante Croce region of Venice, which run from the Grand Canal, into an intricate maze of buildings. The pastel must have been drawn from a boat, which was moored at the side of the palace Ca' Pesaro and looks southwest down to the Ponte del Ravano, with glimpses through to the Ponte Santa Maria Materdomini beyond. For his depictions of these narrow viewpoints, Whistler has deliberately chosen a similarly narrow format of paper. His former pupil Mortimer Mempes describes Whistler revealing his technique. I began first of all by seizing upon the chief point of interest. Perhaps it might have been the extreme distance - the little palace and the shipping beneath the bridge. If so, I would begin doing that distance in elaboration, and then would expand from it until I came to the bridge, which I would draw with one sweep. If by chance, I didn't see the whole of the bridge I would not put in in. In this way the picture must necessarily be a perfect thing from start to finish. (M. Mempes, Reminiscences of Whistler, London, 1903, p. 22-3). Thomas Way Jnr and his father were the leading practitioners in London at the time in the art of lithography and taught Whistler the process. They also provided all of the distinctive brown paper that Whistler took with him to Venice. Way, the son, helped Whistler with the 1881 exhibition of Venetian pastels and produced a series of colour lithographs for the publication, Studio, including the present work. Walter Jessop was an ophthalmic surgeon with a practice on Harley Street. He lent the present work to the Rotterdam exhibition in 1906, one of a small group of international posthumous exhibitions organised shortly after the artist's death. For a condition report on this lot, please contact our Picture department directly, a