Nocturne: Salute

Description

Nocturne: Salute
1879–80
Etching and drypoint
Second state of five (Kennedy 226)
Bequest of Margaret Watson Parker, 1954/1.393
Nocturne: Salute, which was not part of either of the Venice Sets, is even more minimal and understated than the Nocturne from the First Venice Set. The evanescent, almost opalescent, quality of the print, with its brown ink and plate tone at the top and bottom, renders the church of Santa Maria della Salute, a landmark on the Venice lagoon, all but unidentifiable. Whistler once stated that paint should be applied thinly to a canvas, “like breath on the surface of a pane of glass”; this subtle and reductive image along the Grand Canal achieves this effect in a print.
This impression comes from Queen Victoria’s collection at Windsor Castle. It was purchased directly from Whistler, who naturally ensured that the impressions in the royal collection were of outstanding quality; they are considered to be among the very best he printed. Early in the twentieth century, the librarian at Windsor Castle seems to have had little appreciation for Whistler’s prints, and a number of them were put on the market, enabling Margaret Watson Parker to add truly choice impressions to her collection. In an article in November 1906, the New York Times lamented the dispersal of so many outstanding impressions from the royal collection with a description that Whistler himself would have applauded: “A gathering like this impresses the most careless observer with a power in handling of etching very close to that of Rembrandt and a delicacy of touch, a daintiness and charm which Rembrandt did not possess. Whistler is easily the greatest etcher of modern times.”