Documents associated with: II Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia,Venice, 1897
Record 8 of 8
System Number: 05942
Date: 15 August 1897
Author: Filippo Grimani[1]
Place: Venice
Recipient: JW
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler V31
Document Type: ALS
[Crest with lion of St Marks:] SINDACO DI VENEZIA
Venice
the 15th of August 1897
Dear Sir,
In reply to your kind letter[2] that we have just received, in which you most generously offer to the City of Venice the nine proofs of etchings[3] now in our Exhibition, we accept such a noble offer most willingly, and I feel my duty to send you the warmest thanks in the name of the Committee and of the City that I have the honour to represent. Be sure that we are very much sensible and perfectly aware of the great value of your offer to the Modern Art Gallery that is to be as soon as possible constituted here. The Gallery could not, indeed, make a better acquisition.
Meanwhile agree, dear Sir, the expression of my high and grateful consideration.
The Lord Mayor of Venice and President of the Exhibition
F Grimani
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Notes:
1. Filippo Grimani
Comte Filippo Grimani (1850-1921), Mayor of Venice, President of the Internation Art Exhibition of the City of Venice [more].
2. letter
See JW's letter draft, #05941.
3. etchings
The gift to the International Museum of Modern Art of the City of Venice included JW's etchings of Venice (see Mr Whistler's Etchings of Venice, 1880 (the first 'Venice Set') (K. 183-189, 191-195). (excat 5) or A Set of twenty-six etchings of Venice, 1886 (the second 'Venice set') (K.196-216, 233-237). (excat 6)). JW first exhibited them at the 2nd Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia,Venice, 1897, which opened on 22 April. However, they were listed in the second edition of the catalogue only as 'nine etchings' and their full identity has not yet been clarified (see Chiara Rabitti, 'Whistler and the Venice Exhibition' in James McNeill Whistler: The Venetian Etchings/Le Acqueforti Veneziane, exh. cat., Fondazione Querini Stampalia, London, 2001, pp. 67-68).