The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

From the Café Orientale dates from 1879/1880.

From the Café Orientale, Colby College Museum of Art

The drawing is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 751). This record has been updated.

Images

Subject

Site

From the Café Orientale, Colby College Museum of Art

Despite the title given by Whistler in 1881, this is the view from the Ponte de la Pietà, near the Piazza San Marco, and east of the Caffé Orientale. The artist is looking east along the Riva degli Schiavoni to the Arsenal and Public Gardens, in Venice, Italy. ¹

Technique

Technique

From the Café Orientale, Colby College Museum of Art

See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 751).

History

Provenance

• 1955: with Ernest Brown & Phillips, Leicester Galleries, London;
• 1955: bought by Ralph Sassoon, who owned it until at least 1960.
• 1962: sold by F. W. Woolworth to Knoedler's, New York art dealers;
• 1963: sold by Knoedler's, New York, to a private collector, Boston, January 1963.
• By 1987: Ira Spanierman (n/a), New York art dealer;
• Date unknown: sold to a private collector, Boston.
• 2013: given by Paula Crane Lunder (b. 1935) and Peter H. Lunder (b. 1933) to Colby College Museum of Art.

The early provenance is not known, and there may be gaps in the later provenance.

Exhibitions

• 1881: Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 31) as 'From the Café Orientale'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 751) as 'From the Café Orientale'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 31) as 'From the Café Orientale'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon. [Godwin, E. W.], 'Review of Venice Pastels Exhibition', British Architect, 4 February 1881, pp. 59-64.
• 'Mr Whistler's Venice Pastels', Pan, 5 February 1881.

Books on Whistler

• Getscher, Robert Harold, James Abbott McNeill Whistler Pastels, New York, 1991, pp. 31, 104-05 (33).
• Grieve, Alastair, Whistler's Venice, New Haven and London, 2000, p. 161, repr. pl. 204, site repr. pl. 205.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001, repr. p. 34.
• McCann, Justin (ed.), Whistler and the World: The Lunder Collection of James McNeill Whistler at the Colby College of Art, New York, 2015,
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, repr. f.p. 52.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• New Year Exhibition, Ernest Brown & Phillips, Leicester Galleries, London, 1955 (cat. no. 2).
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 83) as 'The Riva in Venice'.
• Spencer, Robin, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1969 (cat. no. 80).
• Reff, Theodore, and Allen Staley (eds), From Realism to Symbolism: Whistler and His World, Columbia University, New York, 1971 (cat. no. 31) as 'The Riva in Venice'.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Notes, Harmonies, and Nocturnes: Small Works by James McNeill Whistler, M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., New York, 1984 (cat. no. 82) as 'From the Café Orientale' (reproduced beside cat. no. 81, The Zattere; harmony in blue and brown m0774).
• American Works on Paper, Spanierman Gallery, New York, 1987 (cat. no. 51) as 'Zattere: Harmony in Blue and Brown' [sic].
• McCann, Justin (ed.), Whistler and the World: The Lunder Collection of James McNeill Whistler at the Colby College of Art, New York, 2015.

Websites

• Colby College Museum of Art website at https://www.colby.edu.