MAURICE B. PRENDERGAST 1858-1924 VENICE Measurements: 18.5in. by 15 25in. Alternate Measurements: (47 by 38.6 cm) signed Maurice B. Prendergast, dated 1898 and titled Venice, l.l.; also inscribed indistinctly Fondamenta Del Vin, l.c. watercolor, gouache and pencil on paper Provenance: Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, by 1940s (possibly acquired in Paris, France or Philadelphia, PA) S.G. Curtis, Jr. (their son), Los Angeles, California Armand Duvannes, Los Angeles, California Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, California, 1963 Acquired from the above, 1963 Exhibited: Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Museum of Art, November 1901, Special Exhibition of Water Colors and Monotypes by Maurice B. Prendergast, no. 13 [as Fondamenta Del Vin (Venice)] Boston, Massachusetts, Boston Water Color Club, Fifteenth Annual Exhibition, February-March 1902, no. 102 (as Fondamenta del Vino) Brooklyn, New York, The Brooklyn Museum; Andover, Massachusetts, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, American Painting: Selections from the Collection of Daniel and Rita Fraad, June-November 1964, no. 32, p. 41, illustrated in color p. 40 New York, The Gallery of Modern Art, Major 19th and 20th Century Drawings, January-February 1965 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 200 Years of Watercolor Painting in America: An Exhibition Commemorating the Centennial of the American Watercolor Society, December 1966-January 1967, no. 126, p. 22 Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum, American Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Collection of Rita and Daniel Fraad, May-July 1985, no. 25, p. 54, illustrated in color p. 55 New York, Coe Kerr Gallery, The Remembered Image: Prendergast Watercolors 1896-1906, October-December 1986, no. 10, illustrated in color New York, Richard York Gallery, The Italian Presence in American Art: 1860-1920, November-December 1989, no. 31, p. 22, illustrated in color p. 4 Literature and References: Boston Evening Transcript, 1902, p. 19 (as Fondamenta de Vin) Art News, October 1962 p. 63, illustrated Main Currents in Modern Thought, January-February 1966, illustrated on the cover Carol Clark, Nancy Mowll Mathews and Gwendolyn Owens, Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonne, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1990, no. 708, p. 384-85, illustrated Note: Beginning in 1898, Maurice Prendergast spent eighteen months traveling in Italy, where he studied the works of the European masters and executed some of his most notable watercolors. Venice, in particular, fascinated the artist, and he was endlessly inspired by the fashionable tourists, luminous canals, and elaborate Venetian architecture. According to Nancy Mowll Mathews, 'Although Prendergast inscribed this work as Fondamenta del Vin, it is a view of Riva del Ferro (across the Grand Canal from the Fondamenta del Vin), taken from the foot of the Rialto Bridge' (Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Charles Prendergast: A Catalogue Raisonne, p. 385).