JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER
(1834-1903)
Following the Ruskin libel suit, Whistler was reduced to bankruptcy and compelled to sell his recently constructed home, The White House in Chelsea. By way of a rescue the Fine Art Society commissioned him to produce twelve etchings of Venice advancing him £150 for a proposed three months visit. They took an option to purchase the twelve plates for £700. Whistler left for Venice accompanied by his mistress, Maud Franklin, in September 1879, remaining there for over a year, where he produced fifty etchings, more than ninety pastels and several oils and watercolours. The set of Twelve Etchings of Venice were exhibited at the Fine Art Society in December 1880, while the second set of Twenty-Six Etchings, to which this belongs, was published by Messrs. Dowdeswell in 1886. Desperately in need of money, Whistler offered to sell his plates to Dowdeswell for £600, writing with typical Whistlerian bravado, ‘Times are bad-very-but then they make the moment for speculation for those who have the chance’ (Lochnan, p.232).
Whistler printed these impressions at a makeshift studio in Air Street, London, set up by the Fine Art Society. The act of etching was not without its hazards. T. R. Way, who had taught Whistler lithography, recalled an incident at the Air Street studio: ‘ Whistler placed a bottle of nitric acid on a heater. The stopper blew out; steaming acid fumes filled the room’. The pair had to run for their lives. (Lochnan p.212).
The district of San Biagio is near the Casa Jankovitz, where Whistler lived during his stay in Venice. Whistler probably worked from a gondola.
San Biagio was etched onto a copper plate; most of Whistler’s plates are now in Glasgow University.
Whistler would trim the margins of each print, leaving a small ‘tab’, which he would sign with his famous ‘butterfly’. The signature was followed by the abbreviation imp. to show that he had printed and approved the print.
Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.
Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .