The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Long Venice dates from 1879/1880.

Long Venice, private collection

It was catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 748). The pastel has now been located and identified; this record has been revised.

Images

Subject

Site

Long Venice, private collection

Venice, photo, 1995

The view across the lagoon from the Public Gardens, with the tower of San Giorgio Maggiore to left, the dome of Santa Maria della Salute, the entrance to the Grand Canal, and the Doge's Palace to right. ¹

Technique

Technique

Long Venice, private collection

The main features of the view were drawn with short and broken repeated outlines in black, and then coloured in with firm strokes of ivory, cream and white, pinks and beige, for the buildings. Shades of blue, turquoise, and grey were roughly scumbled across sea and sky, leaving the brown paper showing through. Touches of light reddish brown, orange and pinkish ochre, complete the details of roofs and shipping. pale pinks, cream and white, very lightly applied, create reflections and ripples.

There are numerous pentimenti, suggesting slight changes in the position of shipping and buildings. There may have been an additional ship in front of the ship at right, and some of the rigging may have been related to that ship.

Frame

Long Venice (Little Venice; in turquoise), framed, private collection

The current frame does not date from Whistler's time. The backbroard has several labels: 'B. Pénau[w?] / LAYETIER - EMBALLEUR / 4. Rue Favart. 4/ [Paris]'; '13434'; 'f119'; 'Return to / R. A. CANFIELD, / PROVIDENCE, R.I., U.S.A. / Title "Long Venice" / Venise./ Artist J. McNeill Whistler'.

History

Provenance

• By 1905: bought (possibly from Whistler in 1903), by Richard Albert Canfield (1855-1914);
• 1914: bought on 12 March by Knoedler's, New York dealers;
• 1914: sold in April to Mrs Willard M. Straight (née Dorothy Payne Whitney) (1887-1968), New York, who married (1) Willard Dickerman Straight (1880-1918) in 1911 and (2) Leonard Knight Elmhirst (1893-1974) in 1925.
• 1940: sold at auction, Lehman et al. sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 2 May 1940 (lot 252) as 'Long Venice', and bought by Charles Sessler (1854-1935), art dealer and bookseller, Philadelphia;
• 1940: bought from Sessler by William Koester, Baltimore, MD, 8 April.
• 1976: sold at auction, Harris Auction Galleries, Baltimore, 29 June 1976, and bought by Louis Glowacki (d. 2003), and Vera Glowacki (née Ostapek) (d. 2020), Baltimore, MD;
• 2020: passed by family descent to their nephew, Arthur W. Bell, MD;
• 2021: bought by Debra Force, Fine Art, Inc., New York:
• 2021: bought by a private collector, USA.

Exhibitions

• 1881: Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 16) as 'Little Venice; in turquoise'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 152) as 'Long Venice'.

T.R. Way, Little Venice; in turquoise, 1881, lithograph, Way 1912, f.p. 52

The lithographer Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) sketched the pastel when it was exhibited in 1881. His thumbnail sketch (reproduced above) has enabled the pastel to be identified. ²

The Daily News on 31 January 1881 called it 'singularly successful.'

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 748) as 'Long Venice' and (cat. no. 823) as 'Little Venice; in turquoise'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 16) as 'Little Venice; in turquoise'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 152) as 'Long Venice'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., 'Mr. Whistler's Venice Pastels', Daily News, London, 31 January 1881, p. 2.

Books on Whistler

• Grieve, Alastair, Whistler's Venice, New Haven and London, 2000, p. 143, repr. pl. 178, view repr. pl. 179.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001, p. 57.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, sketch by Way repr. f.p. 52.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• Anon., 'Superb Collection of Thirty-four Works by James McNeill Whistler', Academy Notes, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, vol. 6, no. 2, April 1911, pp. 33-38, repr. p. 35.

SALE:

• Lehman et al. sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 2 May 1940 (lot 252).
• Harris Auction Galleries, Baltimore, 29 June 1976.