TitleGrand Canal, Venice
Artist
Otto H. Bacher
(American, 1856 - 1909)
Date1880
MediumEtching on chine collé on cream wove paper
DimensionsSheet size: 14 1/8 × 19 3/4 in.
Plate size: 7 3/8 × 10 7/8 in.
SignedSigned faintly in the plate at BL: "Otto H. Bacher_ Venice 80_"; and signed in graphite at lower left: "Otto H. Bacher"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1982.2268
Label TextIn the spring of 1979, Bacher began a three-year period of independent study with Frank Duveneck. He was one of a contingent of Americans who sought out the Kentucky-born artist's instruction after severe overcrowding at the Academy seriously limited the student's choice of teachers. From the fall of 1879 to the summer of 1882, Bacher and his fellow "Duveneck Boys" accompanied their teacher to Florence in the autumn and winter and to Venice in spring and summer. Bacher became friend with James Abbott McNeill Whistler in Venice in 1880, and in 1909 he authored with Whistler in Venice, which is the finest contemporary account of Whistler's Italian sojourn. Bacher's fellow students included Joseph Decamp, John White Alexander, Louis Ritter, Theodore Wendel, Ross Turner and Theodore Wores.In the early 1880s, Bacher completed his Venetian Series. This large series includes etched views of the waterways, sites and people the Queen of the Adriatic, as well as a small group of Florentine scenes. Bacher creatd his print Entrance t the Grand Canal from the steps of the city's famous iron bridge of Santa Maria Della Salute. The artist portraits a broad stretch of the Grans Canal, and pictures gondolas as well as light barges.
