Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

 

The Shop Window

Titles

Possible titles include:

  • 'A shop' (1899, Leinster Hall, Dublin). 1
  • 'The Shop Window' (date unknown, label). 2
  • 'The Shop Window' (1980, YMSM). 3

'The Shop Window' is the preferred title.

Description


                    The Shop Window, private collection
The Shop Window, private collection

A small shop, painted in horizontal format. The shop-front, with a strip of pavement or cobbles in front, is painted parallel to the edge of the panel. An elderly woman in black with a white apron, wearing a black bonnet, and a small girl in a black dress, red blouse, and white pinafore, stand in the dark doorway at left. The wall of the shop is painted white. There are glimpses of goods through the wide, multi-paned window (4 x 3 panes to left and 4 x 4 to right of the dividing strut). A closed door is partly seen at right.

Site

Possibly Chelsea, London, but equally possibly Dieppe or a small town in Brittany.

Notes:

1: A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 82).

2: The title is typed on a label on the back.

3: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 377).

Last updated: 2nd January 2021 by Margaret