UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Long Venice

Impression: Freer Gallery of Art
Freer Gallery of Art
(1898.400)
Number: 211
Date: 1879/1880
Medium: etching and drypoint
Size: 128 x 311 mm
Signed: butterfly at lower left
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: 'Second Venice Set', 1886
No. of States: 8
Known impressions: 37
Catalogues: K.212; M.209; W.182
Impressions taken from this plate  (37)

KEYWORD

church, city, customs-house, gondola, lagoon, palace, panorama, sailing ship, sea, ship.

TITLE

The main variation in title was the addition or omission of 'The', as for example:


'The long Venice' (1882, Whistler). 1
'Long Venice' (1883, F.A.S.) 2
'Long Venice' (1886, Dowdeswell's). 3
'Long Venice' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 4
'Long Venice' (1890/1891, Whistler). 5


Most later cataloguers of Whistler's etchings called it 'Long Venice'.

1: 28 August 1882, GUW #13643.

2: London FAS 1883 (cat. no. 42).

3: A Set of Twenty-six Etchings, GUW #00862.

4: Wedmore 1886 A (cat. no. 182).

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

DESCRIPTION

Venice, Italy: a panoramic view of the Venice shoreline from the Doge's Palace, at the left, to Sta Maria della Salute and the Giudecca canal in the distance on the right. There are sailing ships by the quayside and gondolas on the water.

SITE

A view from just west of the church of La Pietà (Santa Maria della Visitazione), on the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice. From left to right, it shows the Doge's Palace, the Library and the Mint, the entrance to the Grand Canal, the domes of Santa Maria della Salute, the entrance to the Giudecca Canal, and the Chiesa del Redentore on the island of La Giudecca. The view is reversed, as usual (on site, the view includes the Redentore on the left and Doge's Palace on the right). 6

6: Grieve 2000 , pp.158-159, fig.199-200.

DISCUSSION

Lochnan likens this to a drawing of Venice by Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (1712-1793), and Grieve compares it to the misty, opalescent, oil painting of Venice - Maria della Salute (1844, Tate) by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) . 7

7: Lochnan 1984 , pp. 190, 194, 232; Grieve, op. cit., pp.158-159.