UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Long Lagoon was published by Messrs Dowdeswell and Alphonse Wyatt Thibaudeau (ca 1840- d.1892) with A Set of Twenty-six Etchings (the 'Second Venice Set') in 1886.

Whistler delivered in all 1093 prints and was paid £2.10.6 for printing each dozen prints. 9

Long Lagoon was first exhibited at the Fine Art Society in London in 1883, and in the reprise of the show by H. Wunderlich & Co., New York, in the same year. In the F.A.S. exhibition catalogue, designed and written by Whistler, he included quotes chosen from earlier reviews to complement his etchings.

For the Long Lagoon he chose a rather parochial comment from a London newspaper, the Daily News, 'We think that London fogs and the muddy old Thames supply Mr. Whistler's needle with subjects more congenial than do the Venetian palaces and lagoons.' 10 The original quotation - which Whistler did not include in full - continues: 'Our river is naturally full of effects in black and white and bistre. Venetian seas and skies and marbles have colour you cannot suggest with a point and some printer's ink.' 11 Whistler appears to have enjoyed this review and used other excerpts elsewhere in the Venice catalogue; see, for instance The Little Venice [238].

Reviewers of the 1883 F.A.S. show had mixed feelings about the etching. The Queen compared it with the 'very slight' Little Salute [210] and found it 'also slight, but cleverly suggestive.' 12 Saturday Review commented slightly confusingly: 'The "Long Lagoon" is one of several instances that the artist is less happy in dealing with a long wide stretch than with a detached strip or slip of water. The command shown elsewhere of the peculiar effect of water seems here to fail him.' 13

Print dealer's shows including Long Lagoon include H. Wunderlich & Co. in 1898 and (twice) in 1903; Obach & Co. in London in 1903, F. Keppel & Co., New York in 1902 and 1904. 14

An impression was lent by Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) to a show organised by the Caxton Club in Chicago in 1900 (). 15 James Cox-Cox (ca 1849- d.1901) lent an impression from his 'Venice Set' to the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901. 16

After Whistler's death two impressions were shown at the Grolier Club in New York in 1904, and Howard Mansfield (1849-1938) lent one (which has not been located) to the Memorial Exhibition organised by the Copley Society in Boston in 1904. 17 Others were exhibited at the Memorial Exhibitions in London and Paris in 1905 - King Edward VII lent an impression to the London show (). 18

Whistler sold an impression on 8 August 1882 to the London print dealer, Thomas M. McLean (b. ca 1832), for £4.4.0. 19 He sold another on 12 September 1882 to Queen Victoria for £5.5.0 (). 20

From 1886 most impressions were sold by Messrs Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau with the 'Second Venice Set'. Dowdeswell's gave a set including an impression of Long Lagoon to the British Museum in 1887 (). Thibaudeau sold a set for £52.10.0 through Gustave Lauser (b. ca 1841) to H. Wunderlich & Co. in May 1888, and it was bought by Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) in 1890 (). Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) bought one from Frederick Keppel & Co. in 1887 () and another from Obach & Co. in 1905 ().

An impression sold at auction at Christie’s, 27 November 1888 (lot 168) was bought by Obach & Co. for £1.10.0. One was sold at auction from the collection of the late Joshua Hutchinson Hutchinson (ca 1829 - d.1891) at Sotheby's, 3 March 1892 (lot 264) for £2.0.0. By contrast, the whole set 'Venice, Second Series' 'in a folio', owned by Mrs Edward Fisher of Abbotsbury, Newton Abbot, was sold at Christie’s, 13-14 July 1897 (lot 316) to Colnaghi's for £82.0.0.

Whistler also gave an impression to Elisabeth Lewis (1844-1931), inscribing the original mount 'To Mrs George Lewis' and signed with his butterfly. Mrs Lewis owned an impression Balcony, Amsterdam. The print and mount went to her daughter Katherine, who bequeathed them to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1961. (). 21

Atherton Curtis (1863-1944) owned a lightly inked first state () and Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (1845?-1924) a more richly inked and sensitively wiped impression (). Early American collectors included George Aloysius Lucas (1824-1909) (, ); Samuel Putnam Avery (1822-1904) (); Harry Brisbane Dick (1855-1916) (); Margaret Selkirk Watson Parker (1867-1936) (); Alfred Atmore Pope (1842-1913) (); and Bryan Lathrop (1844-1916) ().

An impression printed by Émile Frédéric Salmon (1840-1913) was acquired by Ernest Stephen Lumsden (1883-1968), and bought from his widow by the National Galleries of Scotland. Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) inherited an impression from the artist in 1903, which she bequeathed to the Hunterian Art Gallery ().