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The Riva

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.388)
Number: 229
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 202 x 298 mm
Signed: butterfly at upper left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'First Venice Set', 1880
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 55
Catalogues: K.192; M.189; W.157
Impressions taken from this plate  (55)
The Riva dates from 1880. Whistler arrived in Venice in September 1879. He was active in Venice from October 1879 to October 1880 and was back in London in November 1880. A similar view dating from the same period is Riva, No. 2 [230].
It was published in Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (the 'First Venice Set') in 1880. Impressions were printed over many years, the plate being finally cancelled in 1889. 1

1: E.G. Brown to Whistler, 20 May 1889, GUW#01225.