The Beggars

The location is the Sotoportego e Corte de le Carozze. The subject was sketched in Venice where Whistler stayed from September 1879 through to November 1880. It seems likely that it was started in the autumn of 1879 as Whistler stayed close to the location.

Commissioned by the Fine Art Society in 1879 for Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (otherwise known as the ‘First Venice Set’). It was published in Venice in 1880.

Whistler accepted the commission as he had recently been made bankrupt due to his recent libel case against John Ruskin. In 1877 the Ruskin, the most influential art critic of the Victorian period, in a review of works shown at the Grosvenor Gallery, London, criticised Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875 (Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit) stating that ‘I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ Whistler responded by taking Ruskin to court for libel, justifying his price; ‘I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.’ A report of the case was printed in The Daily News on 26th November 1878. Whistler won his case but was only awarded a farthing in damages without cost. For many years after he referred to the painting as The Pot of Paint.

1. Edward G. Kennedy, The Etched Work of Whistler. New York, Grolier Club, 1910 (194)
2. Howard Mansfield, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etchings and Dry-Points of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Chicago, Caxton Club, 1909 (191)
3. Sir Frederick Wedmore, Whistler’s Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue. London, Thibaudeau, 1886 (159)
4. Whistler Etchings Project (190)

1. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
2. Hunterian Art Gallery Collections, University of Glasgow, Glasgow (7 impressions)
3. Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
4. Victoria and Albert Museum: Print Collection, London

See the Whistler Etchings Project for a list of impressions.

1. Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists. Paris, Gründ, 2006
2. Rodney K. Engen, Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and Their Works. Cambridge, Chadwyck-Heley, 1979
3. Kenneth M. Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1977
4. Katharine A. Lochnan, The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1984
5. Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995
6. William Rough, ‘A cluster of butterflies: James Guthrie Orchar and his collection of Whistler etchings and drypoints’, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, Volume 16, 2011-12