?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
JAMES A. M. WHISTLER San Biagio.
Etching printed in dark, brownish black on antique, ivory laid paper, 1879-80. 208x303 mm; 8 1/4x12 inches. MacDonald's seventeenth state (of 17). Edition of approximately only 30. Signed with the butterfly and inscribed "imp" in pencil on the tab, lower left. From Twenty-Six Etchings. A superb, richly-inked impression of this very scarce etching, with selective wiping in the foreground water and with warm tone throughout, similar to the impression in this state at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, gifted by the artist's sister-in-law and executor of his estate, Rosalind Birnie Philip.
From the second set of Venice etchings, one of 26 subjects in all (there were 12 etchings in the first set), published in an edition of approximately 30 by Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, London.
According to MacDonald, San Biagio was probably etched by Whistler in the summer or autumn of 1880. At this time he was staying at the Casa Jankowitz on the Riva San Biagio, along with fellow artists Otto Bacher and Frank Duveneck (see lots 94 and 95); the view shows the beach where his fellow artists kept their boats. San Biagio was likely made around the same time as several other important Venice etchings by Whistler, including Upright Venice (see lot 96). Kennedy 197; Glasgow 237.
