Whistler began signing his paintings and etchings with his trademark butterfly signature in the early 1870s. The butterfly appears on all of the prints in both Venice Sets, often in two places: etched within the composition (at lower left in this print) and written in graphite on a tab Whistler cut from the print’s margin. Whistler was among the first artists to sign his prints in graphite and the first to leave a tab in the margin for his signature. As he did here, Whistler usually further annotated the tab with “imp.”—an abbreviation of the Latin impressit, “pressed or printed”—to indicate he printed the plate himself. Whistler also annotated the back of this print in graphite with his butterfly signature and the words “Selected proof.”