The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Behind the Arsenal dates from 1880.

Behind the Arsenal, Fogg Art Museum

This pastel is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 791).

Images

Subject

Site

Behind the Arsenal, Fogg Art Museum

The Calle Seco Marina, near the public gardens, at the far eastern end of the sestiere of Castello, in Venice, Italy. ¹ It was a working class quarter, not far from the Casa Jankowitz where Whistler was staying. The 'Arsenale' were the shipyards where the fleets that gave the Venetian Republic its economic and military superiority were built. The area became military property when the Austrians occupied the city in 1815, but there are still working boatyards behind the Arsenale.

Technique

Technique

Behind the Arsenal, Fogg Art Museum

For details see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 791).

History

Provenance

• By 1905: owned by John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929), London;
• 1926: 'Calle Venise' bought by Colnaghi, London dealers (a/c A48805), and sold to Kennedy, New York dealers, on 16 July;
• 1927: bought from Alphonse Kann (1870-1948), art dealer, through Martin Birnbaum (1878-1970), by Grenville Lindell Winthrop (1864-1943), 1 December 1927;
• 1943: bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum.

For further details see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 791).

Exhibitions

• 1881: Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 24) as 'Behind the Arsenal'.
• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 60).
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 159).

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 791) as 'Behind the Arsenal'.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Venice Pastels, Fine Art Society, London, 1881 (cat. no. 24) as 'Behind the Arsenal'.
• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 60).
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 159).

Books on Whistler

• Grieve, Alastair, Whistler's Venice, New Haven and London, 2000, pp. 136-37, repr. pl. 169, view repr. pl. 168.
• MacDonald, Margaret F., Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice, Aldershot and California, 2001, p. 101.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, p. 268, repr.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Whistler Journal, Philadelphia, 1921, p. 182.
• Prideaux, Tom, The World of Whistler, New York, 1970, p. 140, repr.
• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr, American Watercolors and Pastels 1875-1950 at the Fogg Art Museum, brochure, Cambridge, MA, 2006, checklist
• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr, Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, (eds), American Paintings at Harvard, vol. 2, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 416-19 (cat. no. 444), repr. p. 416.
• Sutton, Denys, Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler, London, 1963, p. 100.
• Sutton, Denys, James McNeill Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels and Watercolours, London, 1966, p. 193; repr. p. 86.
• Way, Thomas Robert, Memories of James McNeill Whistler, the Artist, London and New York, 1912, repr. f.p. 52.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• Loan Collection of Works by James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, 1912.
• Gillerman, Dorothy W. (ed.), Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 1969, p. 244.
• American Watercolors and Pastels, 1875-1950, at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 2006.

Journals 1906-Present

• Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr, 'American Watercolors and Pastels, 1875-1950', American Art Review, April 2006, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 88-93, repr. p. 88.

Websites

• Harvard Art Museums website at https://www.harvardartmuseums.org.