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Gondola under a Bridge

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1905.202)
Number: 227
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 295 x 201 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 2
Known impressions: 3
Catalogues: K.227; M.224
Impressions taken from this plate  (3)

KEYWORD

bridge, building, canal, gondola, house.

TITLE

Whistler's original title is not known. Minor variations on the title are as follows:


'A Quiet Canal' (1906, Otto Henry Bacher (1856-1909)). 1
'The Gondola under the Bridge' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 2
'Gondola under a Bridge' (1910, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932)). 3


Bacher's title would cause confusion between this etching and Quiet Canal [224], so Kennedy's title, 'Gondola under a Bridge', has been preferred.

1: Bacher 1906.

2: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 224).

3: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 227).

DESCRIPTION

A view down a narrow canal, with four-storey buildings on either side, and a steeply arched bridge with a high parapet crossing the canal in the middle distance. Under the bridge, at left, a gondola is moored. A row of columns support the arches of an open passageway at left, with steps leading down to the canal half-way along it.

SITE

The Ponte de la Panada in the city of Venice, Italy, seen from a gondola moored at the junction of the Rio de Ca' Widmann with the Rio de la Panada, looking north. 4 This view, drawn accurately on the copper plate, is reversed, as usual, in the print. Nearby Whistler etched Venetian Court [189], Ponte Piovan [220] and Quiet Canal [224].

4: Grieve 2000, pp. 89, 91, fig. 95.