Piazza di San Marco

Prendergast’s first visit (of two) to Venice was financed by his Boston patron Sarah Choate Sears. About a year into his eighteen-month stay, he wrote to his brother, the painter Charles Prendergast, "It has been the visit of my life. I have been here almost a year and have seen so many beautiful things." His time in Venice inspired some of his most successful and dynamic watercolors. Here, Prendergast depicts an unusual prospect of the Piazza di San Marco, the city’s most distinctive tourist site and the center of Venetian life. Within the square composition, space is compressed and the scale is striking—three Italian flags dominate the foreground, while San Marco’s iconic tower is truncated in the background. Diminutive figures dot the piazza below, and at left the space expands with a view of the distant lagoon.