Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Nocturne, black and gold – No. 6, Rag Shop, Chelsea' (1884, Dowdeswell). 1
• 'the Shop Nocturne' (1899, J. Lavery). 2
• 'Brown & Gold - Chelsea Rags - Nocturne' (1899, Whistler). 3
• 'Nocturne in Brown and Gold – Chelsea Rags' (1899, ISSPG). 4
• 'Nocturne, Chelsea Rags' (1905, ISSPG). 5
• 'Nocturne: Black and Gold – Rag Shop, Chelsea' (1980,YMSM). 6

'Nocturne: Black and Gold – Rag Shop, Chelsea' is the preferred title.

Description

A night scene painted in horizontal format, showing a shop in the middle distance. At left there are two very dimly lit windows, one above the other. In the middle is a large multi-paned shop-window, with vague forms, presumably of clothes, just visible, and to right, an open door, leading into a room with pictures on the wall and a small child standing in the middle.

Site

A rag shop in Chelsea, London. The precise shop has not been identified.

Old clothes and rag shops were frequently etched, drawn and painted by Whistler. He etched several old clothes shops in Chelsea including The Little Rag Shop, Milman's Row [265] and The Rag Shop, Milman's Row [290] in 1887. Elsewhere in London he etched Rag Shop, St Martin's Lane [328], and Clothes-Exchange, Houndsditch. No. 2 [359].

He also drew two lithographs called Chelsea Rags c026 and Drury Lane Rags c025, but they are only remotely connected, through the subject, to the oil. There is also a drawing of a similar subject, Chelsea Rags [M.1586], and a later oil, Old Clothes Shop, Houndsditch [YMSM 371].