John Singer Sargent

Catalogue entry

N03406 RIVA DEGLI SCHIAVONI, VENICE c. 1904

Not inscribed.
Watercolour, 10×14 (25·5×35·5).
Presented by Lord Duveen 1919.
Coll: As for N03405.

A view of the Riva degli Schiavoni seen from a gondola near the Dogana. The Palazzo Ducale and Prigioni are sketched in on the far left.

Sargent seems to have begun making watercolours during his second visit to Venice in 1880 (Mount, 1957, p.60), and henceforth made many studies of the city on subsequent visits which, from the late nineties onward, became part of the artist's annual break from portrait painting (Mount, 1957, pp.252–3). The watercolours are hard to date but N03406 may be identical with that shown at the loan exhibition of watercolours held at Carfax & Co., April 1905 (5), ‘The Riva’, lent by the artist. On the other hand, the title ‘Gondola Prows’ appears twice on the back of the mount and again on the wooden backboard, and a watercolour of this title was included in the Carfax exhibition of 1905 as No.27, also on loan from the artist.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II

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