John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society
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Keywords
OP.652
Venetian Scene
ca. 1881
Oil on panel
4 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (12.1 x 19.7 cm)
Private collection
Provenance
Violet Twachtman Baker, the artist's daughter, New York;
by descent in the family to present collection.
Literature
Peters 1995
Peters, Lisa N. "John Twachtman (1853–1902) and the American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Frontier within the Terrain of the Familiar." 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York, 1995. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1996, vol. 1, p. 148; vol. 2, p. 674 ill. in b/w (fig. 131), as Venetian Scene.
Commentary

This small panel depicts a view looking east along the Zattere in Venice, with the Church of the Gesuati and the Ponte Longo on the right. Twachtman probably stood on a bridge to render the scene due to its high vantage point, which enabled him to look down at the hull of the large ship in the middle distance.

The most likely date for this painting is 1881, when Twachtman concluded his honeymoon at the end of the year in Venice. There he joined Otto Bacher and Frank Duveneck, who also created images from this vantage point: see Duveneck’s View of the Bay of Venice (or Venetian Sketch), 1881 (oil on canvas, location unknown) and Bacher’s etching, Fondamenta Delle Zattere (see D.451, fig. 1).[1] The composition may have formed the basis for Twachtman's etching, Woman on the Quay (E.200), which features a similar high-angled scene of a figure on a quay in a reverse perspective. 

[1] Duveneck’s painting is illustrated in Robert Neuhaus, Unsuspected Genius: The Art and Life of Frank Duveneck (San Francisco: Bedford ), p. 80 (no. 57).