Venice Harbor
date: label: Date
content: 1879-1880
name: label: Artist
content: James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
notes: label: Description
content: A view across the water to buildings and sailing vessels, including, at the extreme right, two sailboats, one with a red and yellow sail; signed with the butterfly at lower left corner.
label: Signatures
content: Blue butterfly in lower left corner
label: Paper/Support
content: On rough, wove paper mounted overall to board. A watermark reading "J. Whatman/Turkey Mill/187[?]" appears through the bottom half of the paper.
label: Label
content: One of only two watercolors Whistler is known to have completed while in Venice, Venice Harbour depicts a view from the public gardens, looking northwest toward St. Mark's basilica. The brown tower left of center is the Campanile, which rises behind the pale facade of the Doge's Palace. Along with a related pastel Whistler titled The Giudecca: Winter; grey and blue (now in a private collection), Venice Harbour was probably completed in November or December 1879.
label: Provenance
content: To 1905
label: Provenance
content: Thomas Way Sr. (1827-1915), London, or Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913), London, to 1905 [1]
label: Provenance
content: From 1905 to 1919
label: Provenance
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Thomas Way Sr. or Thomas Robert Way in 1905 [2]
label: Provenance
content: From 1920
label: Provenance
content: Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] See Original Whistler List, Paintings, pg. 20B, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Thomas Way Sr. and his son, Thomas Robert Way, were lithographers who worked closely with Whistler on several of his projects. They helped with the printing of his etchings, as well as the printing of Whistler’s promotional materials. Both Thomas Way Sr. and Thomas Robert Way owned many Whistler works. Thomas Way Sr. acquired several of these works at the time of Whistler’s bankruptcy, and he passed some of them on to his son (see The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855-1903, ed. Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp, On-line Edition, People, biographies of Thomas Way and Thomas Robert Way; http://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence).
label: Provenance
content: Charles Lang Freer acquired many Whistler pieces from the Ways. However, museum records do not always specify whether it was the younger or elder Way who was the source of a particular object. Further, archival sources indicate that the junior Way sometimes acted on behalf of his father: whilst negotiating the sale of his own Whistler works to C.L. Freer, he would concurrently negotiate the sale of some of his father’s Whistler works to Freer. In cases where it is unclear whether it was the junior or senior Way who actually owned a piece acquired by C.L. Freer, the provenance record will simply state that the object was purchased from “Thomas Way Sr. or Thomas Robert Way.”
label: Provenance
content: [2] See note 1.
label: Provenance
content: [3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.
label: Collection
content: Freer Gallery of Art Collection
label: Exhibition History
content: Whistler in Watercolor (May 18 to November 3, 2019)
label: Exhibition History
content: Whistler in Venice: The Pastels (January 19 to June 15, 2003)
label: Exhibition History
content: James McNeill Whistler Pastels, Etchings, Paintings, Watercolors (November 11, 1976 to June 24, 1977)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Thomas Way Sr. (1837-1915)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) (C.L. Freer source)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)
place: label: Origin
content: United States
topic: label: Topic
content: mounting
label: Topic
content: yellow pigment
label: Topic
content: bone black
label: Topic
content: cobalt blue
label: Topic
content: Prussian blue
label: Topic
content: burnt sienna
label: Topic
content: raw sienna
label: Topic
content: iron oxide red
label: Topic
content: zinc white
label: Topic
content: yellow ocher
label: Topic
content: indigo
label: Topic
content: watermark
label: Topic
content: water
label: Topic
content: United States
label: Topic
content: American Art
label: Topic
content: Charles Lang Freer collection
setName: label: Related Online Resources
content: Google Arts & Culture
label: Related Online Resources
content: Whistler in Watercolor
label: See more items in
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Charles Lang Freer
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: F1905.118a-b
objectType: label: Type
content: Painting
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Watercolor on paper
label: Dimensions
content: H x W: 12.2 x 27.8 cm (4 13/16 x 10 15/16 in)