UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: grolier club

Doorway and Vine

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1887.2)
Number: 191
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 233 x 170 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower right
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Second Venice Set', 1886
No. of States: 18
Known impressions: 45
Catalogues: K.196; M.193; W.161
Impressions taken from this plate  (45)

KEYWORD

archway, building, canal, child, courtyard, passageway, people, vine.

TITLE

It has almost always been known by one title, as in the following examples:


'Doorway and Vine' (1883, F.A.S.). 1
'Doorway with vine' (1882, Whistler). 2
'Doorway & vine' (1886, Whistler). 3
'Doorway and Vine' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 4


Clearly 'Doorway and Vine' is the generally accepted title.

1: London FAS 1883 (cat. no. 2).

2: Whistler to Queen Victoria, 12 September 1882, GUW #13072.

3: Whistler to W. A. Killen, 21 October 1886, GUW #08660.

4: Wedmore 1886 A (cat. no. 161).

DESCRIPTION

A view across a courtyard to a wide archway leading to a shadowed passage through a building to a canal. A vine climbs up the wall to left and above the archway. To right of the arch is a small shuttered arched window. Above the arch is a window with open shutters, with two figures looking out from a dark interior. The archway itself has a carved wooden architrave, substantial roof beams, and at the far end, a rectangular window above the square exit. A man stands at the right of the passage by the canal. There are several figures on the far bank of the canal, and a window with open shutters in the building behind them.

SITE

Venice, Italy. The exact site has not been identified, although it is a sottoportego similar to ones off the Campo Santa Margarita. 5 A comparable setting - with similar carved wooden beams - is seen in The Beggars [190].

5: Grieve 2000 , pp. 131, 192, fig. 159.