Abstract
As artistic and ideological changes were taking place within American art in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Venice became an epicenter of influence for the Tonalist and Aesthetic movements. This paper examines two of those influences: James McNeill Whistler's eighteenmonth stay in the city from 1879 to 1880 and the revival of the art glass industry on the Venetian lagoon island of Murano. Previous scholarship has been conducted on each of these events individually, but they have yet to be juxtaposed and placed in conversation with one another. I am taking a new perspective, one that includes both influences as well as the socio-political climate of both Venice and the United States. Doing so sheds light on a story that involves a series of disparate coincidences that culminated in a Venetian art scene that fostered the growth of American artists.