Doorway of the Doges', Venice
Medium
Etching in sepia on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 39.4 × 19.7 cm (15 9/16 × 7 13/16 in.); Sheet: 39.9 × 20 cm (15 3/4 × 7 7/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
46596
Art Historical Context
Step through the shadowed arches of Venice's storied past with Donald Shaw MacLaughlan'sDoorway of the Dog', Venice* (1909), a masterful etching that captures the grandeur of the city's Renaissance architecture. This intimate view likely centers on one of the ornate doorways the Doges' Palace a symbol of Venetian power and opulence during its mercantile golden age. Created at the height of the early 20th-century etching, the work evokes the atmospheric mystery of Venice's canals and palazzos, inviting viewers to linger on intricate stone details bathed in soft light. MacLaughlan, a skilled Ca...
About the Artist
Donald Shaw MacLaughlan
Donald Shaw MacLaughlan (1876–1938) was born on November 9 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, though he is recognized as an American artist after his family relocated to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1890. There, as a teenager, he immersed himself in the Boston Public Library's collections of old master prints, studying works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and eighteenth-century E...