Object details
Object number
S.G.Sar.1.1.1.3
Creator(s)
James McNeill Whistler
(Lowell, Massachusetts, 1834 - 1903, London, England)
Title
First Venice Set: The Beggars
Date
1879-1880
Medium
Etching and drypoint printed on laid paper
State
VIII/XVII
Dimensions
30.7 x 21.1 cm (12 1/16 x 8 5/16 in.)
Signatures, inscriptions, and markings
Signed in pencil (on tab): Whistler's butterfly signature [dated 1885-1886]
Inscribed (on tab): "imp." [hand of Whistler]
Inscribed (on paper, verso): "a 6953, (illegible)" [dealer stock number]
Provenance
Possibly in the collection of the surgeon and etcher Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910), by 1890.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the art dealers H. Wunderlich & Co., New York on 11 April 1890 for $750. (as part of "Whistler's two sets of Venice etchings")
Commentary
Isabella Stewart Gardner kept meticulous records of many of her acquisitions. In keeping with this legacy, object information is continually being reviewed, updated, and enriched in order to give greater access to the collection.
Bibliography
The Fine Art Society. Mr. Whistler's Etchings (London, 1883), no. 50.
Frederick Wedmore. Whistler's Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue (London, 1886), pp. 169-70, no. 159.
James McNeill Whistler. The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (London, 1890), pp. 92-93, 104, no. 50.
Elizabeth Robins Pennell and Joseph Pennell. The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols. (London, 1908), I, pp. 282, 284; II, 84.
Howard Mansfield. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Chicago, 1909), pp. 126-28, no. 191.
Edward G. Kennedy. The Etched Work of Whistler (New York, 1910), pp. 77-78, no. 194.
Thomas Robert Way. Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist (London, 1912), p. 46.
P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. An Exhibition of Etchings, Dry Points & Lithographs by James McNeill Whistler (London, 16 November - 10 December 1971). p. 29, no. 95.
Wildenstein and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From Realism to Symbolism: Whistler and His World. Exh. cat. (New York, 1971), pp. 51-52, no. 35, pl. 46.
David Park Curry. James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art. Exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, 1984), p. 265, figs. 257.1, 257.2.
Katharine A. Lochnan. The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler. Exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984; Toronto: The Art Gallery of Ontario, 1985), pp. 191, 241, 266, 280, no. 192.
Otto Henry Bacher. "With Whistler in Venice" (New York, 1908), in Robin Spencer (ed.). Whistler: A Retrospective (New York, 1989), pp. 168.
Margaret F. MacDonald. James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours, a Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven, 1995), p. 266, no. 727.
Alastair Grieve. Whistler's Venice (New Haven, 2000), pp. 36-37, 39, 59, 128, 131, 189, 192, fig. 16.
Margaret F. MacDonald. Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice (Berkeley, 2001), pp. 20, 22-23, 39, 68, 79, 84, 88, 91, 98, 128-32, 139, pl. 22, 104.
Margaret F. MacDonald et al. Whistler, Women & Fashion. Exh. cat. (New York: The Frick Collection, 2003), p. 213.
Richard Linger. "James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)" in Elizabeth Anne McCauley et al. Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 2004), pp. xv, 268-69, figs. 2, 225. (erroneously as "The Doorway," p. xv, fig. 2)
Margaret F. MacDonald et al. "The Beggars." James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné (University of Glasgow, 2012), no. 190, accessed 12 May 2016. http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/
Gallery
Short Gallery
Rights and reproductions
The use of images, text, and all other media found on this website is limited. Please review Rights and Reproductions for details.
