San Biagio

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

San Biagio describes a working-class Venetian neighborhood east of the Riva degli Schiavoni. In the foreground, two small boats have been pulled onto the bank and drying laundry is strung overhead. Whistler used these details to establish a range of textures but devoted more attention to establishing a series of visual planes linked by a shadowed passageway. The composition progresses from the half-light of the canal into a dark tunnel and emerges into a brightly lit receding walkway punctuated by tall chimneys. A version of this print was exhibited in 1883 at the Fine Art Society then published in 1886 as part of the "Second Venice Set."

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