JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER (AMERICAN 1834-1903)
VENETIAN CANAL (RECTO); AND BRIDGE OVER CANAL (VERSO), (M.0766)
Chalk and pastel on brown paper
30 x 20cm (11¾ x 7¾ in.)
Executed circa 1879-80.
Provenance:
Macbeth, New York;
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 30 May 1984, lot 43, bt. Merrington;
Rodney Merrington, London;
From a Private Collection.
Exhibited:
New York, M. Knoedler & Co, Inc., Notes, Harmonies and Nocturnes: Small Works by James McNeill Whistler , 29 November - 27 December 1984, no. 86;
London, Bankside Gallery, Visions of Venice , 1 November - 2 December 1990;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Whistler and Holland , 16 August - 9 November 1997, fig. 39;
Glasgow, The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Whistler and Holland , 19 October 2000 - 27 January 2001;
Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice , 17 October 2003 - 18 January 2004;
Valencia, The Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM), Whistler-Music , 21 July - 25th September 2005;
Riehen/Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Venice from Canaletto and Turner to Monet , 28 September 2008 - 25 January 2009, no number.
Literature:
M. MacDonald, Notes, Harmonies and Nocturnes: Small Works by James McNeill Whistler , 29 November - 27 December 1984, no. 86, ill., p. 66
J. F. Heijnbroek and M. F. MacDonald, Whistler and Holland, 1997, ill., fig. 39, p. 34
MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours : A Catalogue Raisonné , New Haven, 1995, no. 1278, pp. 281-2, ill., No. 766
Dr. A Grieve, Whistler's Venice , New Haven, 2000, pp. 56, 59, ill., pl. 46
M. MacDonald, Palaces in the Night; Whistler in Venice , Aldershot & California, 2001, pp. 45, 46, 53, ill., pl. 50
M. Schwander, ed, Venice from Canaletto and Turner to Monet , 2008, pp. 94, 102, 220
M. MacDonald, G. Petri, James McNeill Whistler: The paintings, a catalogue raisonné , University of Glasgow, 2020, website at <https://whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk> ., no. M.0766
The present subject captures the Rio dei Tre Ponte from the Fondamenta San Marco. The Ponte da Ca'Rizzi is in the left foreground and the Ponte dei Tre Ponte in the distance. The area has changed considerably since Whistler's depiction, with bridges altered and rebuilt. The bridge depicted in the sketch on the verso of the sheet is the Ponte del Guglie.
As Dr Alastair Grieve notes, Whistler has drawn the view from a slightly elevated position so that he is looking down on the fondamenta , from a bridge that is no longer extant. He has used the edge of the structure to form a vertical axis in the centre of his paper. The bridge with two arches in the distance in his pastel is part of the Ponte dei Tre Ponti, a knotty interchange of bridges which was rebuilt in 1933 when the Rio Novo was made . It is obscured...today by a bridge with a pointed top, the Ponte del Pagan . (Grieve, op. cit. p.59).
His delight in the architecture and the constantly changing views of the city is evident in the present work, which seems to embody the lively portrayal that Whistler wrote in a letter to his mother describing, the colours of the walls and their reflections on the canals are more gorgeous than ever - and with sun shining upon the polished marble, mingled with rich, toned bricks and plaster this amongst the city of palaces becomes really a fairyland - created one would think especially for the painter. (M. Schwander, op. cit , p. 95).
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