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Several variations on the title are known:
'Rose and Red: The Barber's Shop, Lyme Regis' is the generally accepted title, rather than the original succinct title 'The Barber's Shop'.
A shop front, in horizontal format. At right are two doorways, and standing in the right hand one is a girl wearing a hat, with a red pinafore over a dark dress. Through the other open door is visible a figure in a white apron, and shelving. To left is a square multi-paned window with goods along the window sill, and a dog on the pavement below. The shop is on a slight hill, rising to right.
Lyme Regis, Dorset, a fishing port on the coast in south-west England. Whistler also drew several lithographs in the sea-side town, including The Little Doorway, Lyme Regis c119 and The Little Steps, Lyme Regis c131, and Sunday, Lyme Regis c134.
This is one of many shop fronts painted by Whistler in the 1880s and 1890s. See for instance An Orange Note: Sweet Shop [YMSM 264], where the figures of children are equally prominent, and, in Lyme Regis, The Little Nurse [YMSM 443].
Merrill comments on the important influence of such small scale, almost abstract compositions, citing Childe Hassam's News Depot, Cos Cob (1912, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT) as an example. 6
1: A Collection of Selected Works by Painters of the English, French & Dutch Schools, Goupil Gallery, London, 1898 (cat. no. 24).
2: Whistler to H. Roberts, [16 September 190l], GUW #13904.
3: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 102).
4: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 102, illustrated edition).
5: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 444).
6: Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, pp. 128-29, 196 (cat. no. 12).
Last updated: 17th October 2020 by Margaret