Signed and annotated ‘imp’ in pencil on the tab.
Literature: Kennedy 213, VII;
Glasgow 208, XII.
Provenance: with Allinson Gallery, Storrs Connecticut, USA.
A glowing impression.
After its publication in 1880, Whistler continued perfecting his First Venice Set. In 1883 he exhibited a second set titled A Set of Twenty-Six Etchings, known as the Second Venice Set, at the Fine Art Society in London, which was later published in 1886 by Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau. This second set included the present view across a narrow Venetian canal to a square open doorway in a stone wall that opens into a workroom with a furnace on the left, throwing a bright glow over the smith standing in front of it to the right.
With the First Venice Set, Whistler revolutionized the presentation of prints for sale, trimming them to the platemark and leaving a small tab of paper on the bottom edge for his butterfly signature the 'imp' annotation, indicating that he had printed it himself, as in our case. Furthermore, instead of producing a uniform set, he printed each impression differently.
£ 5,500.-