Etching and drypoint printed in dark, brownish black on antique, cream laid paper, 1879-80. 307x211 mm; 12 1/8x8 1/4 inches. MacDonald's seventeenth state (of 17). Signed and dated "Mar 27 1903" by the printer, Frederick Goulding, in pen and brown ink, verso. Strasburg Lily watermark. From Twelve Etchings. A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this extremely scarce etching.
This is one of the larger etchings in the first "Venice Set," made on a plate obtained directly from a Venetian craftsman (not one brought by Whistler from London). The view is through a relatively dark passageway from the Corte de la Carozze to the Campo Santa Margarita. Whistler reworked the figures several times after returning to London. Kennedy 194; Glasgow 190.
