The Last Joke—Bellagio or A Good Joke
1887
Artist, American, 1864 - 1946

Artwork overview
-
Medium
platinum print
-
Credit Line
-
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 11.7 × 14.7 cm (4 5/8 × 5 13/16 in.)
mount: 52 × 36.5 cm (20 1/2 × 14 3/8 in.) -
Accession
1949.3.30
-
Stieglitz Estate Number
60A
Part of Stieglitz Key Set Online Edition
Learn more -
Key Set Number
33

Alfred Stieglitz
Curious for more Alfred Stieglitz scholarship?
Discover over 1,000 artworks that the artist’s wife Georgia O’Keeffe termed his “Key Set” of prize photographs. Museum scholars have illuminated each work, his career, practices, and lifetime achievements.
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Georgia O'Keeffe; gift to NGA, 1949.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1958
Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, March 16–April 27, 1958
1983
Photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, February 3–May 8, 1983; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, June 17–August 14, 1983; The Art Institute of Chicago, October 18, 1983–January 3, 1984
2002
Alfred Stieglitz: Known and Unknown, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, June 2–September 2, 2002; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 6, 2002–January 5, 2003
2014
A Subtle Beauty: Platinum Photographs from the Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2014–2015
Bibliography
1947
Engelhard, Georgia. "Alfred Stieglitz: 'Father of Modern Photography.'" The Camera 69 (June 1947): 50.
1983
Homer, William Innes. Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession. Boston, 1983: 12.
Greenough, Sarah, and Juan Hamilton. Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings. Washington, 1983: no. 1.
2002
Greenough, Sarah. Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Photographs. Washington, 2002: vol. 1, cat. 33.
Inscriptions
by Alfred Stieglitz, on mount, upper left verso, in graphite: Exhibition / 1921; left center verso: The Last Joke— / Bellagio 1887
by Georgia O'Keeffe, on mount, lower left verso, in graphite: 60A
Wikidata ID
Q64034653
Scholarly Remarks and Key Set Data
Remarks
In the summer of 1887 Stieglitz traveled through Italy, stopping in Venice, Chioggia, Pallanza (on Lake Maggiore), Bellagio (on Lake Como), and Riva de Garda (on Lake Garda). This photograph and Key Set numbers 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38 were made in Bellagio. Later that fall, Stieglitz sent twelve photographs made during the trip, including A Good Joke, to The Amateur Photographer’s “Photographic Holiday Work Competition,” judged by Peter Henry Emerson (see The Amateur Photographer 6 [4 November 1887], 217). This photograph won first prize (see The Amateur Photographer 6 [25 November 1887], 253).
The negative for this image was made using a Steinheil Aplanat 19-inch lens on Perutz’s Orthochromatic plates and developed using oxalate, pyrosoda, hydroquinone, and eikongen (see exh. cat., Fourth Annual Joint Exhibition, New York, 1891).
Other Collections
A print corresponding with this photograph can also be found in the following collection(s):
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 370.1964
Private collection
Lifetime Exhibitions
A print from the same negative—perhaps a photograph from the Gallery’s collection—appeared in the following exhibition(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:
1888, Vienna (no. 52.a.6, as Genrestudie aus Italien)
1890, London, Crystal Palace (no. 836, as A Good Joke)
1891, New York (no. 237, as A Good Joke, aristotype)
1892, New York, The Society of Amateur Photographers of New York (as A Good Joke, lantern slide)
1894, Toronto
1899, New York (no. 22, as A Good Joke, 1887–1889, platinum direct)
1908, Toronto (no. 93, as A Good Joke)
1921, New York (no. 1, as My First-Prize Winner, 1887)
Lifetime Publications
A reproduction of this work appeared in the following publication(s) during Alfred Stieglitz’s lifetime:
The Amateur Photographer 7, special number (11 July 1888): frontispiece (ill., A Good Joke)
Photographische Mitteilungen 26 (September 1889): opp. 153 (ill., untitled)
“Alfred Stieglitz and his Latest Work,” The Photographic Times 28: 4 (April 1896): 162 (ill., A Good Joke)
Marmaduke Humphrey, “Triumphs in Amateur Photography,” Godey’s Magazine 135 (December 1897): 590 (ill., A Good Joke)