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Lagoon - Noon

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1887.27)
Number: 209
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 127 x 204 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left (3-final)
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Second Venice Set', 1886
No. of States: 3
Known impressions: 30
Catalogues: K.216; M.213; W.186
Impressions taken from this plate  (30)

KEYWORD

lagoon, gondola, sailing ship, sea, ship.

TITLE

Only one basic title is known, with minor variations in punctuation, as in the following examples:


'Lagoon: Noon' (1883, Fine Art Society). 1
'Lagoon: Noon' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 2
'Lagoon Noon' (1890/1891, Whistler). 3

Lagoon: Noon is the preferred title.

1: London FAS 1883 (cat. no. 51).

2: Wedmore 1886 A[more] (cat. no. 186).

3: List, [1890/1891], GUW #13236.

DESCRIPTION

A bridge, with people on it, crosses diagonally across the foreground at lower right. Out in the lagoon, there is a gondola on the right, and beyond it, to left, a two-masted sailing ship with three sails spread. Farther away are numerous smaller craft, some under sail. Clouds hang low over the horizon. There are trees in the distance, at the right.

SITE

A view in the city of Venice, Italy, taken from the upper floor of a house near the Casa Jankowitz, looking south-east, away from the Riva degli Schiavoni, towards the Public Gardens and across the water to the Lido. The wide stone bridge in the foreground is the Ponte de la Veneta Marina over the Rio de la Tana. 4 This view, drawn accurately on the copper plate, is reversed, as usual, in the print.

4: Grieve 2000[more], pp. 123-124, view repr. pl. 148.