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National Museum of Women in the Arts

First Night in Venice

The skyline of Venice sits on the horizon, casting a hazy reflection of buildings and light in the water against a tan-golden background. The etched print has many thin, wavy, black horizontal lines to denote water and the sky in contrast to the tighter, more vertical lines of the buildings.
Ellen Day Hale, First Night in Venice, 1890; Soft-ground etching with aquatint on paper, 7 1/2 x 9 3/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
Close up of First Night in Venice
The skyline of Venice sits on the horizon, casting a hazy reflection of buildings and light in the water against a tan-golden background. The etched print has many thin, wavy, black horizontal lines to denote water and the sky in contrast to the tighter, more vertical lines of the buildings.

Artwork Details

  • Artist

    Ellen Day Hale

  • Title

    First Night in Venice

  • Date

    1890

  • Medium

    Soft-ground etching with aquatint on paper

  • Dimensions

    7 1/2 x 9 3/4 in.

  • Donor Credit

    Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

  • Image Credit

    Photo by Lee Stalsworth

  • On Display

    No

The Artist, Ellen Day Hale

Ellen Day Hale was among the wave of American artists, both men and women, who traveled to Europe for training in the last quarter of the 19th century.
A painting of a light skinned, older woman who is seated on a black chair. She wears a large, black hat, and a white turtleneck that is barely visible beneath a black coat and black feathered shawl. The background, rendered in visible, thin painstrokes, is grey and brown.