Collection
/
American Art

Laguna with Steamers and Gondolas

Robert Frederick Blum

Brooklyn Museum photograph

Object Label

Although interested in Japanese art since his youth, Robert Blum developed a more sophisticated understanding of its aesthetics through his close contact with James McNeill Whistler in Venice—the setting of this work—during the summer of 1880. From Whistler he learned to create compositional tensions between blank areas and those with motifs, as well as to achieve tonal variations in etching with sketchy lines and hand-inked plates. The latter technique produced the subtle grays in the sky of this work.

Caption

Robert Frederick Blum (American, 1857–1903). Laguna with Steamers and Gondolas, 1885. Etching in black ink on cream, medium thick, slightly textured wove Japan paper, sheet: 10 5/16 x 15 3/8 in. (26.2 x 39.1 cm) image: 7 5/8 x 8 7/16 in. (19.4 x 21.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Cincinnati Museum Association, 11.579. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Gallery

Not on view

Collection

American Art

Title

Laguna with Steamers and Gondolas

Date

1885

Medium

Etching in black ink on cream, medium thick, slightly textured wove Japan paper

Classification

Print

Dimensions

sheet: 10 5/16 x 15 3/8 in. (26.2 x 39.1 cm) image: 7 5/8 x 8 7/16 in. (19.4 x 21.4 cm)

Signatures

Etched lower left: "Blum / 85 Venice" and stamped in red below lower right corner of image: "Blum" within square

Inscriptions

Inscribed in pencil at lower left of sheet: "261" Artist's stamp in lower margin

Credit Line

Gift of the Cincinnati Museum Association

Accession Number

11.579

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Artists and makers

Robert Frederick Blum

28 works in the collection