Little Lagoon
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Little Lagoon, etching, 1879-80, signed in pencil with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp”. Reference: Kennedy 186, second state (of 2), published in Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (also known as The First Venice Set). In very good condition, trimmed by the artist on the plate mark except for the tab, 8 13/16 x 6, archival mounting.
Provenance: ex Collection Gilbert A. and Anne Blair Harrison
A fine delicately balanced impression, with a subtle plate tone, wiped carefully to accentuate the water toward the bottom foreground of the plate. Printed on a sepia laid paper with the WW watermark.
In the first state of Little Lagoon the gondola was etched only lightly; in the second state it was redrawn with short heavy lines and some lines showing a reflection in the water below were added.
Whistler made a number of etchings while in Venice, under the sponsorship of the Fine Art Society in London. He chose twelve for his First Set, and another 26 for the Second Set, published later. It was while printing the First Set that he began the practice of signing each print in the edition, a tradition that has been followed (with many exceptions) in the print world. He also annotated the prints “imp”, short for the Latin impressit, indicating that he printed each impression himself (and in contrast to the printing of editions today, he used different papers, wiped and printed each print a bit differently, so each print is in an important sense unique). The process of printing was so slow and agonizing (at least to his publishers) that he never completed the process of printing the complete edition (which was to be a total of 1200 impressions for all the prints) of the First Venice Edition by the time of his death, in 1903.