The Palace; White and Pink

James McNeill Whistler

Pastel on brown paper

National Gallery of Art

This pastel on brown paper depicts a Venetian palace facade rendered in delicate whites and pinks, characteristic of Whistler's celebrated Venice series. James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), an American-born artist who spent his career largely in Britain and France, traveled to Venice in 1879 on a commission from the Fine Art Society, London, to produce a set of etchings; during his fourteen-month stay he produced approximately one hundred pastels alongside the etchings. Working on brown or grey-brown paper, Whistler developed a distinctive and sparing technique—drawing a precise outline and then applying minimal touches of color so that the toned paper itself became an active element of the composition, imparting a luminous, atmospheric quality. First exhibited at the Fine Art Society's Venice Pastels exhibition in January 1881 as no. 15 under the title "The Palace; white and pink," the work is catalogued in Margaret F. MacDonald's authoritative catalogue raisonné (Yale University Press, 1995) as no. 758.