Water Carriers, Venice
1884
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Reverend F. Ward Denys
Accession Number
1943.11.1
Tags
About this artwork
Welcome to modern Venice, a living city where local fishermen and families proudly perform their everyday chores, like fetching fresh water from communal cisterns, against a magnificent maritime backdrop. You stand on the Riva degli Schiavoni, the waterfront promenade adjacent to St. Mark's Basilica, the Ducal Palace, and other renowned attractions, but this is not a pristine, souvenir-style view of famous monuments. It recognizes instead the economic reality of Italy in the late nineteenth cent...
About the Artist
Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck (1848–1919) was an American painter, etcher, and teacher whose dark, bravura style made him one of the most celebrated and influential American artists of the late nineteenth century. Born in Covington, Kentucky, he showed early artistic promise and eventually made his way to Munich, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts under Wilhelm von Diez. Munich's artistic culture...