Nocturne

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tone and atmosphere dominate many of Whistler’s Venetian etchings, and tonal wiping here suggests night falling across the Bacino (Basin of Saint Mark’s). We look toward the entrance of the Giudecca Canal at a large sailing ship anchored to the left of San Giorgio Maggiore. Equal weight is given to real and reflected forms, and gondolas, formed by smudged drypoint lines, appear as though through rising mist. The artist began to work on the plate soon after he arrived in September 1879 and the print was published by the Fine Art Society in December 1880 as part of Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (the "First Venice Set"). As in most of Whistler’s etchings, the image reverses the actual view.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art