UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

Etchings         Institutions search term: hunterian art gallery

Traghetto

Impression: Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
(1927.5960)
Number: 231
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 240 x 311 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left (1-2); replaced with new butterfly (3-final)
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 4
Known impressions: 7
Catalogues: K.190; M.187
Impressions taken from this plate  (7)

KEYWORD

arch, canal, courtyard, gondola, ferry, lantern, man, palace, passageway, people, tree, worker.

TITLE

There are minor variations in the title, as follows:


'Traghetto' (1891, Whistler). 2
'The Traghetto' (1902, Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932)). 3
'The Traghetto. No. 1' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 4
'The Traghetto, No. 1' (1910, E.G. Kennedy). 5


'Traghetto' is Whistler's original title. This etching can be confused with the later version of the scene, The Traghetto, No. 2 [233], which is unavoidable.

2: Whistler to F. Keppel, 13 May 1891, GUW #13068.

3: Kennedy 1902 (cat. no. 368).

4: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 187).

5: Kennedy 1910 (cat. no. 190).

DESCRIPTION

In the centre is a broad arch, the entrance to a dark passageway underneath a building, leading to a canal. The passage is roofed with beams, and lit, towards the far end, by a lantern. A seated man can be seen beyond the passage, at the left, and the canopy of a gondola on the right. In the foreground, in a courtyard, three slender trees are growing. In the wall to left of the arch is a window with lozenge-shaped panes, and at the right are two windows. There are men in the right foreground. For later changes, see STATES.

SITE

Comparative image
The site is the courtyard of the Ca’ da Mosto, north of the Rialto bridge in the district of Cannaregio, Venice, Italy. 6 This view, drawn accurately on the copper plate, is reversed, as usual, in the print. This is the first version of The Traghetto, No. 2 [233].

6: Grieve 2000 , pp. 83–84.