Venetian Court

During the brief time Maurice Prendergast spent in Venice in 1898, he saw the city through the eyes both of a tourist and of an artist who reveled in depicting people in public settings. The monochromatic browns and grays of Venetian Court (CR 1706) contrast with the vibrant colors the artist usually used in his images of the playful antics of children. Here, they are shown running on cobblestone pavement in an unidentified Venetian piazzetta. The opaque square panes of shop windows echo its square cobblestones. These patterns are relieved by the slender solitary tree, its delicate leaves made by the wiping away of ink in small dabs. A brown border defines the image, but scientific analysis has established that it was added later along the left edge. An inscription at the lower left is illegible.

Speculation had paired Venetian Well (TF 1992.115, CR 1705) and Venetian Court as two halves of a single composition but printed on separate sheets from the same matrix. The darker monotype Venetian Well was considered the original pull and Venetian Court a later pull or cognate. This account would explain the significant color differences. However, examination under transmitted light determined that the subtle irregularities along the cut edges of the two sheets correspond perfectly, verifying that they originally were one sheet. Moreover, the difference between the two prints' colors is the result of Venetian Court apparently having undergone a bleach bath that lightened it. No documentation remains as to why or when the print was divided or by whom, or when Venetian Court was bathed in bleach. While a border was added to the left edge of Venetian Court to complete it as an independent composition, the same was inexplicably not done for Venetian Well.

This is not the only example of the manipulation of a monotype after Prendergast's death. Lady with Umbrella (TF 1999.115, CR 1572) and Lady with Handkerchief (TF 1992.90, CR 1571) were likewise printed on a single sheet that was then divided. For more information, see Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné (1990), to which the CR numbers for the monotypes noted above refer.

Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast from the Terra Museum of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venues: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., January 27–April 14, 1985; Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–June 30, 1985; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, July 12–September 8, 1985; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, September 20–November 17, 1985; Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan, November 24, 1985–January 19, 1986; Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, January 28–February 24, 1986; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, May 13–June 15, 1986; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 23–August 24, 1986; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, September 2–October 26, 1986; The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, November 2–30, 1986; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 13, 1986–February 15, 1987; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, June 21–July 31, 1987; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, August 8–September 27, 1987; Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, October 4–November 5, 1987; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1987–January 7, 1988; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, January 20–March 22, 1988; Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 9–May 29, 1988. [exh. cat.]

The Work of Charles and Maurice Prendergast, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 16–April 21, 1991.

Prendergast in Italy, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, July 18–September 20, 2009; The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, October 9, 2009–January 3, 2010; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, February 14–May 9, 2010. [exh. cat.]

Langdale, Cecily. Monotypes by Maurice Prendergast in the Terra Museum of American Art. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Museum of American Art, 1984. Text pp. 34, 116, 118; ill. no. 36, p. 119 (color).

Clark, Carol, Nancy Mowll Mathews and Gwendolyn Owens. Maurice Brazil Prendergast; Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonné. Munich, Germany and Williamstown, Massachusetts: Prestel-Verlag and The President and Trustees of Williams College, 1990. No. 1706, p. 615; ill. no. 1706, p. 615 (black & white).

Mathews, Nancy Mowll with Elizabeth Kennedy. Prendergast in Italy. (exh. cat. also translated into Italian as Prendergast in Italia; all pages are identical) London: Merrell in association with Williams College Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art, 2009. Text p. 116, 183 (checklist); fig. 30, p. 115 (color).