The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Little Back Canal dates from 1880.

The Little Back Canal, The Frick Collection

It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 779).

Images

Subject

Site

The Little Back Canal, The Frick Collection

This was probably drawn from a boat, looking east down the Rio de l'Isola, off the Rio de San Zan Degolà, in the sestiere of Santa Croce, Venice, Italy; the area, as Grieve writes, has been redeveloped, the canal filled in and the bridge destroyed. ¹

Technique

Technique

History

Provenance

• 1903: with William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925), London art dealer.
• By 1904: owned by Richard Albert Canfield (1855-1914);
• 1914: bought from Canfield by Knoedler's, New York art dealers, 12 March 1914;
• 1914: sold to Stephen Carlton Clark (1882-1960), New York, March 1914, but returned in February 1915;
• 1915: bought in April from Knoedler's by Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919);
• 1919: bequeathed to the Frick Collection, New York.

Exhibitions

• 1881: Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 7) as 'The Little Back Canal'.
• 1903-1904: Possibly Watercolours, Pastels, Drawings in Black and White, Sculptures and Bronzes By British and Foreign Artists Including A Selection of Works by H. B. Brabazon, and A Group of Works by the late James McNeill Whistler, W. Marchant & Co., Goupil Gallery, London, 1903 (cat. no. 174) and 1904 (at. no. 26) as 'The Little Bridge'.
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 157) as 'The Ferry, Venice'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 779) as 'The Little Back Canal'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 7) as 'The Little Back Canal'.
• Possibly Watercolours, Pastels, Drawings in Black and White, Sculptures and Bronzes By British and Foreign Artists Including A Selection of Works by H. B. Brabazon, and A Group of Works by the late James McNeill Whistler, W. Marchant & Co., Goupil Gallery, London, 1903 (cat. no. 174) and 1904 (at. no. 26) as 'The Little Bridge'.
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 157) as 'The Ferry, Venice'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Anon., [Godwin, E. W.], 'Review of Venice Pastels Exhibition', British Architect, 4 February 1881, pp. 59-64.
• Anon., 'Mr. Whistler's Wenice; or, Pastels by Pastelthwaite,' Punch, vol. 80, 12 February 1881, p. 69.

Books on Whistler

• Grieve, Alastair, Whistler's Venice, New Haven and London, 2000, pp. 61-62, repr. pl. 49, views repr. pl. 50-51.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001, pp. 53, 55.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, repr. f.p. 52.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• The Frick Collection: Drawings, Prints & Later Acquisitions, Volume 9, New York, 2003.

Websites

• Frick Collection website at https://collections.frick.org, as 'Venetian Canal'.