Sotto Portico del Traghetto

This Venetian view demonstrates Hopkins’ absorption of the older master’s approach to etching and relates, compositionally, closely to Whistler’s ‘Venice Set’ (1879-80, published 1880) and his ‘Second Venice Set’ (1879-80, published in 1886).

Hopkins, who studied at the Cincinnati Art School later attended the Royal Academy in Munich Academy of Fine Arts. In 1880, the year this etching was made, he joined a colony of American painters, which included John H. Twachtman, Otto Bacher, and John White Alexander, established by Frank Duveneck in Munich. In Venice that same year, he formed a friendship with author Henry James and Whistler, whose own etchings influenced the young artist.