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A thin, narrow-shouldered woman holding a black shawl close to her body walks toward us down an alleyway past a pair of men wearing all black in this horizontal painting. One of the men’s faces is in shadow but all three people seem to have light skin. The woman’s shawl wraps around her shoulders and the bottom hem, edged with fringe, kicks around her shins over a long, cream-white skirt. A stroke of magenta pink at her neck, perhaps her shirt, is echoed in the deep pink of her closed, full lips. Her gaze seems to be downcast, and her features, like much of the rest of the scene, are loosely painted. A touch of coral red on her head could be a flower or decoration in her brown hair, which seems to be pulled back. Behind her and to our right, two men stand, presumably talking, near a building. Both wear black hats and the collars of their black coats seem to be lined with fur. One man leans against the building and looks toward the woman. The other man looks at his companion, his face in shadow. In the distance, a man and woman sit at a small table on the far side of the alley. Buildings rising along the walkway to our left and right fill the composition and extend off the top edge. At least two buildings close off our view across the far end of the alley. A higher structure behind one of them seems to catch sunlight with a touch of bright, cream white, but the scene in the alley is softly lit, in diffused shadow. The faces of all the buildings are ivory or pale peach, and most have forest-green shutters. On the buildings, the paint is applied in rough layers to mimic stucco or plaster. Throughout the work, loose brushstrokes are visible. The artist signed the work in dark paint in the lower right corner: “John S. Sargent.”

John Singer Sargent

Street in Venice, 1882

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 70

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 45.1 x 53.9 cm (17 3/4 x 21 1/4 in.)

framed: 65.41 × 76.2 × 7.62 cm (25 3/4 × 30 × 3 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the Avalon Foundation

Accession Number

1962.4.1

Artists / Makers

John Singer Sargent (artist) American, 1856 - 1925

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right: John S. Sargent

Provenance

Purchased 30 January 1888 by Elizabeth Chanler, Boston, at the St. Botolph Club Exhibition; given by her to Stanford White [1853-1906], New York, for professional services;[1] his wife, Mrs. Bessie Smith White [d. 1950], New York; their son, Lawrence Grant White [1887-1956], St. James, Long Island, New York; his wife, Mrs. Laura Astor Chanler White, St. James, Long Island, New York; purchased 1962 by NGA.

[1] (This note does not appear in the provenance published in the 1998 NGA systematic catalogue entry on the painting.) The early part of the provenance comes from letters and notes in NGA curatorial files. However, Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, in their Sargent chronology for late October 1887, cite the following: "Stanford White hosts a dinner at which Sargent is guest of honor. Sargent offers [James Carroll] Beckwith his choice of two Venetian studies as a wedding gift. Beckwith chooses Venetian Bead Stringers (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo), and Sargent gives A Street in Venice (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC) to Stanford White." (See Ormond and Kilmurray, John Singer Sargent: The Early Portraits, New Haven and London, 1998: xvii.)

Associated Names

Chanler, Elizabeth
White, Bessie Smith
White, Lawrence Grant
White, Lawrence Grant, Mrs.
White, Stanford

Exhibition History

1882: Société Internationale des Peintres et Sculpteurs, Première Exposition, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1882-1883, no. 99, as Une Rue à Venise.

1888: John Singer Sargent's Paintings, St. Botolph Club, Boston, January 1888, no cat.

1888: Sixteenth Annual Exhibition, Art Gallery of the Inter-State Industrial Exposition, Chicago, September-October 1888, no. 378, as Sketch of Venetian Life.

1888: Sixty-third Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, April-May 1888, no. 213, as Venetian Street.

1892: New York Columbian Celebration of the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Discovery of America. Catalogue of the Loan Exhibition. National Academy of Design, New York, October 1892, no. 3, as Venice.

1892: Retrospective Exhibition, Society of American Artists, New York, December 1892, no. 276, as Venetian Scene.

1899: Sargent Loan Exhibition, Paintings and Sketches by John S. Sargent, The Copley Society of Boston, Copley Hall, Boston, 1899, no. 36.

1901: Exhibition of Fine Arts, Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901, no. 30.

1917: Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by John Singer Sargent for the Benefit of the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris, The Copley Gallery, Boston, 1917, no. 9, as Venice.

1924: Paintings by John Singer Sargent, Art Institute of Chicago, April-June 1924, no catalogue.

1924: Retrospective Exhibition of Important Works of John Singer Sargent, Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, February-March 1924, no. 39.

1925: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late John Singer Sargent, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1925, no. 71.

1926: Memorial Exhibition of the Work of John Singer Sargent, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1926, no. 13, repro.

1947: A Century of Centurion Art, The Century Club, New York, 1947, unnumbered checklist.

1951: The American Tradition 1800-1900, National Academy of Design, New York, 1951, no. 125.

1964: The Private World of John Singer Sargent, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Cleveland Museum of Art; Worcester Art Museum; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1964-1965, no. 16.

1969: In Memoriam, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, unnumbered checklist.

1997: Uncanny Spectacle: The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1997, no. 18, repro.

1998: John Singer Sargent, Tate Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1998-1999, not in cat. (shown only in Washington).

2000: Rave Reviews: American Art and Its Critics, 1826-1925, National Academy of Design, New York; Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa; Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2000-2001, no. 51, repro. (shown only in New York).

2003: Sargent's Women, Adelson Galleries, Inc., New York, 2003, no. 17, repro.

2003: Whistler and His Circle in Venice, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Grolier Club, New York, 2003, no. 87, repro. (shown only in Washington).

2007: Sargent's Venice, Adelson Galleries, Inc., New York; Museo Correr, Venice, 2007, no. 47, repro.

2008: Venice: From Canaletto and Turner to Monet, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 2008-2009, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2018: John Singer Sargent and Chicago's Gilded Age, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2018, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1925: Downes, William Howe. John S. Sargent: His Life and Work. Boston, 1925: 30, 143-144.

1927: Charteris, Evan. John Sargent. New York: Scribner's, 1927, pp. 57, 163, 283.

1956: McKibbin, David. Sargent's Boston. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1956: 78.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:496, color repro.

1969: Mount, Charles Merrill. John Singer Sargent: A Biography. Rev. ed. (originally published 1955). New York, 1969: 464.

1970: American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 96, repro.

1970: Ormond, Richard. John Singer Sargent: Paintings, Drawings, Watercolors. New York, 1970: 30, 238, pl. 20.

1980: Adelson, Warren. John Singer Sargent: His Own Work. New York: Coe Kerr Gallery, 1980, p. 32, fig. 14, no. 1229.

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 219, repro.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 16, 120, repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: repro. 142, 144.

1982: Ratcliff, Carter. John Singer Sargent. New York: Abbeville Press, 1982, p. 73, pl. 106.

1984: Lovell, Margaretta M. Venice: The American View, 1860-1920. Exh. cat. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1984: 97.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 568, no. 865, color repro.

1986: Adelson, Warren. "John Singer Sargent and the 'New Painting'." Exh. cat. Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, 1986: 33, fig. 14.

1986: Ayres, Linda. "Sargent in Venice." In Hills, Patricia, et al. John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1986: 56-61, fig. 35.

1986: Fairbrother, Trevor J. John Singer Sargent and America. New York, 1986: 48-49, fig. 12.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 138, repro.

1989: Lovell, Margaretta M. A Visible Past: Views of Venice by American Artists 1860-1915. Chicago, 1989: 75-76, color pl. 6.

1990: Fairbrother, Trevor. "Sargent's Genre Paintings and the Issues of Suppression and Privacy." Studies in the History of Art 37 (1990): 33-34, repro. no. 4.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 330, repro.

1997: Simpson, Marc, Richard Ormond, and H. Barbara Weinberg. Uncanny Spectacle: The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent. Exh. cat. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. New Haven and London, 1997: 108, repro.

1998: Ormond, Richard, and Elaine Kilmurray. John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1874-1882. The Complete Paintings, Volume IV. New Haven and London, 2006: no. 808, repro.

1998: Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 103-107, color repro.