The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Chelsea Shop may date from between 1887 and 1896, but could date from later in the 1890s. ¹

Chelsea Shop, Rhode Island School of Design

The Greengrocer's Shop, Paris, The Hunterian

Green and Gold: A Shop in Calais, The Hunterian

It is dated from the technique and its relationship to other works, such as The Greengrocer's Shop, Paris y372. However, it also has much in common with later works such as Green and Gold: A Shop in Calais y474.

Images

Subject

Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Chelsea Shop' (1901, Whistler). ²
• 'The Marine Store' (1903, W. Scott). ³
• 'The General Dealer' (1904, Royal Scottish Academy). ⁴
• 'The General Dealer' (1905, ISSPG). ⁵
• 'The little greengrocers' (1907, A. Reid). ⁶
• 'A Shop Front: The General Dealer' (1914, Knoedler). ⁷
• 'The Old General Dealer' (1934, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). ⁸
• 'Chelsea Shop' (1980, YMSM). ⁹
• 'The General Dealer' (2015, Rhode Island School of Design). ¹⁰

There are obviously green vegetables on and under the table in front of the shop so that Reid's title is probably the most appropriate of all the titles under which it has been known, but, for consistency, Whistler's original title 'Chelsea Shop' is the preferred one.

Description

Chelsea Shop, Rhode Island School of Design

The ground floor of two small shops, in horizontal format. The shop at left has miscellaneous goods including pictures. That at right has a many-paned window displaying small goods, including bottles and boxes, with a trestle table in front, which seems to contain vegetables. In the dark doorway at the right edge stands a woman holding a very small child wearing a red cap.

Site

Probably Chelsea, although it could be the east end of London.

Technique

Technique

Chelsea Shop, RISD

It is painted on a grey primed panel with the design outlined in brown paint and then filled in carefully. Much of the surface is bare of paint. Areas of fairly thin paint are smoothed down to convey reflections on the panes of glass, and on goods visible through the glass. Only in the figures in the doorway – the woman with her white apron and the little girl in a dark brown cloak with a touch of scarlet in her hat – are both the colour and the brushstrokes more rich and fluid.

Conservation History

Chelsea Shop, photograph, 1980

An old photograph shows some abrasion and paint loss at the edges, but otherwise it seems in good condition. Museum records state that it was restored in 1967.

History

Provenance

• By 1901: bought by John James Cowan (1846-1936), Edinburgh, from Alexander Reid (1854-1928), Glasgow art dealer.
• 1907: sold by A. Reid to James Gardner Shepherd (1867-1935), Scranton, PA, in December 1907.
• 1914: with Knoedler's, New York dealers.
• 1916: bought from Scott & Fowles, New York dealers, by Rhode Island School of Design, on 13 December 1916.

It was bought by J. J. Cowan, Edinburgh, from Alexander Reid, and identified by Whistler from the description, drawing and photograph sent to him by Cowan, as "Shop front with vegetables outside[,] figure on steps in doorway to right 'Chelsea Shop' ". ¹¹ It was probably sold by Cowan back to Reid, who sold 'The little greengrocers' to J. G. Shepherd in 1907 with Street in Brittany y415 for £750. ¹² Knoedler's exhibited it in New York in 1914 (cat. no. 7) as 'A Shop Front: The General Dealer'.

Exhibitions

• 1904: 78th Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1904 (cat. no. 308) as 'The General Dealer'.
• 1905: 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. 94) as 'The General Dealer'.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 374), plate 167, as 'Chelsea Shop'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• 78th Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 1904 (cat. no. 308) as 'The General Dealer'.
• 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. 94) as 'The General Dealer'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Scott, William, 'Reminiscences of Whistler. Some Venice Recollections', The Studio, vol. 30, November 1903, pp. 97-108, repr. p. 98 as 'The Marine Store'.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907, p. 221 (cat. no. 439).
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, repr. f.p. 16.
• Sickert, Bernhard, Whistler, London and New York, 1908 (cat. no. 184).
• Spencer, Robin, Whistler, New York, 1990, pp. 120-21.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Rhode Island School of Design, American Paintings from the Museum’s Collection, Selection VII: circa 1800 to 1933, Providence, 1977, pp. 175-77 (cat. no. 81).

EXHIBITION:

• Oils, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings by J. McN. Whistler, Knoedler & Co., New York, 1914 (cat. no. 7) as 'A Shop Front: The General Dealer'.
• Oils, Water-colors, Drawings and Prints by James McNeill Whistler, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1934 (cat. no. 9) as 'The Old General Dealer'.
• Whistler Loan Exhibition, Macbeth Gallery, New York, 1947 (cat. no. 25).
• White, Nelson C., James McNeill Whistler Seventeenth Anniversary Exhibition, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT, 1949 (cat. no. 12).
• Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 53).
• A Man of Influence: Alex. Reid, 1854–1928, Scottish Arts Council, Glasgow, 1961 (cat. no. 3).
• Paintings and Drawings by Victorian Artists in England, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1965 (cat. no. 166).
• Sweet, Frederick A., James McNeill Whistler, Art Institute of Chicago and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1968 (cat. no. 39) as 'The General Dealer (Old General Dealer)'..
• Spencer, Robin, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 1969 (cat. no. 40).
• Reff, Theodore, and Allen Staley (eds), From Realism to Symbolism: Whistler and His World, Columbia University, New York, 1971 (cat. no. 39).
• Days gone by, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1971.
• Selection VII, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1977.
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 35).
• American Painting and Sculpture from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987-1988.
• Romanticism and Revival, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1992-1993.
• From the Reserve IV, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1994.

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• RISD museum website at http://risdmuseum.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 344).

Other

• None.