Dodge's Palace from the Lagoon by Otto Henry Bacher, c. 1880

For much of the decade beginning in September, 1878, Bacher lived in Europe and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He also studied with Frank Duveneck, and traveled with him to Venice, where Duveneck established a studio and where Bacher met and became friends with James A. McNeill Whistler, occasionally visiting him over the ensuing years until Whistler’s death in 1908. A return trip to Europe led to classes at the Academie Julian, and another stay in Venice.