JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER PRINTS

[67] Riva, No.2, 1879–80
Etching and drypoint, signed in pencil with a butterfly and
inscribed imp., printed in dark-brown ink on laid paper, trimmed
at the platemark, leaving a signature tab: in the first state (of two)
from the edition of 42 published in the Second Venice Set, 1886
(no.15)
8 x 11 7/8 inches (20.7 x 30 cm)
Provenance: Charles H. Parker
Reference: Kennedy 206; Glasgow 230
A view looking down on the Campo San Biagio,
probably done from a first floor window at the Casa
Jankowitz, where Whistler moved in the summer of
1880. In the distance is the Riva degli Schiavoni, leading
to the Piazzetta and San Marco.
The work was first exhibited at The Fine Art Society
in 1883 in Arrangement in White and Yellow (no.24) before
publication in the Second Venice Set in 1886.
[68] San Biagio, 1880
Etching and drypoint, signed in pencil with a butterfly and
inscribed imp., printed in dark brown ink on tan laid paper,
trimmed at the platemark, leaving a signature tab; in the sixteenth
state (of seventeen), from the edition of 42 published in the
Second Venice Set, 1886 (no.3)
8 1/8 x 11 15/16 inches (20.8 x 30.3 cm)
Provenance: Henry Harper Benedict (his stamp on the verso; Lugt
1298)
Reference: Kennedy 237; Glasgow 197
When San Biagio was exhibited with the rest of the
Second Venice Set at the Hogarth Club in 1887, an anonymous
newspaper critic was prompted to observe that it
“would be generally accounted to have the greatest variety
of subject. It represents a quarter of Venice in which
elegance battles bravely with squalor” (“Mr Whistler’s
Etchings,” The Standard, March 3, 1887; quoted in
Glasgow catalogue). He was presumably referring to the
fact that the seventeenth-century warehouse depicted
here, in front of the Calle and Corte de le Colone in
the Campo San Biagio in the Cannaregio district, now
housed impoverished workers; indeed, the inhabitants’
laundry can be seen hanging from the windows and even
right down over the archway. The artist was living in
the Casa Jankowitz on the Riva San Biagio with several
American art students in the summer or fall of 1880 and
his room looked onto the Campo San Biagio.
The composition was largely complete in the first
state, which Whistler began in etching; in subsequent
states he employed additional shading and lines in both
etching and drypoint to further define the details and
figures. San Biagio was first exhibited at The Fine Art
Society in 1883 and the eighth state of the print was published
as part of the Second Venice Set in 1886.
100 VENICE james mcneill whistler: prints 101