In 1836 two minor Venetian islands, San Cristoforo and San Michele were joined to become a single island that served as a burial ground for Venice. The city's dead were brought to the island, now known as San Michele, by a distinctive, ornate gondola, a conveyance that poet Percy Bysshe Shelley had already likened to a funeral bark when exploring the city with Byron in 1818.
Clairin was a well-known personality in Paris at the end of the century and had a wide-ranging oeuvre. He began his career as a painter of Moroccan scenes before embracing decorative work at the Paris Opéra. An intimate of the actress Sarah Bernhardt, Clairin portrayed her in various roles. In this haunting watercolor, a grieving woman leans against the matronly figure of death while a pensive young woman is seated before them. Clairin's background in the theater lends this gondola scene the air of a dramatic performance that suggests it might be a scene from an opera.