Provenance

• 1899: sent on approval to Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), Paris;
• 1899: on 13 April, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958) asked Bing to return it;
• 1900: bought from the Company of the Butterfly by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) , Detroit, on 23 May for £73.10.0;
• 1919: bequeathed by to the Freer Gallery of Art

There is some confusion about when exactly Freer bought this watercolour. On 31 August 1899 Freer noted that he had bought 'a small shop front with figures', but according to Whistler it was bought on 23 May 1900, and according to Freer he paid for it on 16 June 1902. 1

Exhibitions

• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 97) as 'Chelsea Children'.