Maurice Prendergast is a unique American painter. Although linked with the realist group, "The Eight," he was really a modernist more comfortable with post Impressionism.

Prendergast studied in Paris from 1891 to 1895, at the Académie Colarossi with Gustave Courtois and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and at the Académie Julian. During one of his early stays in Paris, he met the Canadian painter James Morrice, who introduced him to English avant-garde artists Walter Sickert and Aubrey Beardsley, all ardent admirers of James McNeill Whistler. A further acquaintance with Édouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard placed him firmly in the Post-Impressionist camp. He also studied the work of Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat at retrospectives held in Paris in 1891 and 1892. Prendergast was additionally one of the first Americans to espouse the work of Paul Cézanne and to understand and utilize his expressive use of form and color.

Prendergast returned to Boston in 1895 and worked mainly in watercolor. A trip to Venice in 1898 exposed him to the genre scenes of Vittore Carpaccio and encouraged him to experiment with even more complex and rhythmic arrangements. His inventive watercolors of Venice are among his most appreciated works today.

The Gondolas, Venice incorporates the spare palette of J.A.M. Whistler, who Prendergast adored, with the simplicity and formal approach of the Nabis painters, Bonnard and Vuillard. It was a modern picture in 1898.