The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

A Shop probably dates from between 1888 and 1895. ¹ Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) at first thought that it dated from the 1880s, and the technique could well fit with the late 1880s although the butterfly signature is unusual. However, the signature appears to have been altered, with one that is typical of the 1888/1890 period obscured by a larger version.

A Shop, Art Institute of Chicago

A later date, suggested by Whistler's correspondence, is also possible. Rose and Red: The Barber's Shop, Lyme Regis y444 and A Shop y448 could be the pictures referred to by Whistler in a letter written on 17 September 1895 from Lyme Regis to David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) of Goupil, London dealers, 'I shall have some lovely little pictures of the nature of the little Sweet shop - you remember - only if anything finer in quality.' ² And on 2 November Thomson, after visiting Whistler in Dorset, mentioned having seen '...the Shops of Lyme Regis[,] the Barbers, the Sweet Shop[,] the Drapers & the other delicacies. The delightfully quaint composition, the splendid drawing & the subtle colour & tone.' ³

Images

Subject

Titles

Possible titles include:

• 'Chelsea Children' (n.d., anon.) ⁴
• 'A Shop' (1980, YMSM). ⁵
• 'A Chelsea Shop' (2015, Terra Foundation). ⁶

'A Shop' is the preferred title, since the site has not been identified.

Description

A Shop, Art Institute of Chicago

A street scene in horizontal format. At left is a small shop, with two small children peering into the many-paned window at the good within. At right a woman in a white apron stands in a passageway leading under the houses to another street.

Site

Possibly painted in Chelsea, London, ca 1890, or in Lyme Regis, between September and November 1895.

Technique

Composition

A Shop, Art Institute of Chicago

The Terra website discusses the composition:

'The deliberate asymmetry of the composition and the contrast of structured lines and flat expanses recall the powerful influence of Japanese woodblock prints, which Whistler greatly admired. Compared to most of his shop-front paintings, here the figures … are relatively prominent; they lend notes of movement, color, and animation. ...Whistler was less interested in recording the scene before him or capturing the flavor of urban life than in the decorative potential of his subjects. With his facile brushwork and understated palette, the artist blurred the weathered surfaces and irregular geometry of the old shop fronts ... to reveal their underlying design, anticipating the full development of abstract art early in the twentieth century.' ⁷

Technique

A Shop, Art Institute of Chicago

It is painted with careful brushstrokes, and very thin paint, almost like watercolour. The Terra website comments:

'Rapidly executed in thin layers of transparent oil paint, the work is relatively pale in tone, with the grays of the open doorway, glazed window, and street set against the modulated pinks of the solid wall. ... In the 1880s Whistler favored such small panel paintings for their portability and ease of execution. Smoother than canvas, the wood surface more clearly reveals evidence of the painting process, an assertion of the creator’s presence and persona that links Whistler to modernist tendencies in late-nineteenth-century art.' ⁸

The butterfly signature is unusual and shows signs of having been reworked, possibly touched up by Whistler or by another hand.

Conservation History

A Shop, photograph, 1974

Unknown. Old photographs show it in reasonable condition. There may be some slight abrasion marks at left.

Frame

Frame size: 34.3 x 43.2 x 3.5 cm (13 1/2 x 17 x 1 3/8").

History

Provenance

• 1903: said to have been in Whistler's studio at his death in 1903 and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• Date unknown: said to have been given to her doctor, and passed to his family;
• 1972: sold to Spink, London art dealers;
• 1972: sold by Spink's to Anthony D'Offay, London art dealer;
• 1973: sold by D'Offay to Davis, New York art dealers;
• 1973: sold by Davis to Meredith J. Long (n/a), art dealer, Houston, Texas;
• 1974: sold by Long to William R. Lloyd (dates unknown), Houston, 1974;
• Date unknown: sold by Lloyd to Davis & Long, New York dealers;
• 1979: sold by them to Daniel J. Terra (1911-1996);
• 1992: passed to the Terra Foundation for American Art;
• 2005: transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago.

According to dealer's records, Miss Birnie Philip gave this painting to her doctor and it remained in his family until sold to Spink's in 1972. The title is not, however, listed in her records, and the early provenance, though possible, is not certain.

Exhibitions

• It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

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. 448), plate 292, as 'A Shop'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• None.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• MacDonald, Margaret F., Notes, Harmonies, and Nocturnes: Small Works by James McNeill Whistler, M. Knoedler & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1984 (cat. no. 95).
• Atkinson, D. Scott et al., A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, edited by Terry A. Neff, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1987, repr. p. 151.
• Selections from the Permanent Collection: Americans at Home and Abroad, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1987.
• An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1988.
• Whistler and His Circle, Minnesota Museum of Art, St Paul, 1989.
• Regard sur James Abbott McNeill Whistler (James Abbott McNeill Whistler at a Glance), Musée d'Art Américain, Giverny, 1994, repr. p. 72.
• Un regard américain sur Paris (An American Glance at Paris), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, 1997, repr. p. 72.
• Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography, The Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1999.
• The Decorative Form: The Aesthetic Movement, Arts & Crafts and the Asian Influence in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1999.
• Figures and Forms: Selections from the Terra Foundation for the Arts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2000.
• New Faces, New Places: Recent Additions to the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2000.
• Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2001.
• A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2002-2003.
• Modern Harmonies: Whistler Reflects on his Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2003.
• Studied Abroad: Painted Impressions from the Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2003-2004.
• Mathews, Nancy Mowll, and Elizabeth Kennedy, Prendergast in Italy, (translated into Italian as 'Prendergast in Italia'), London: Merrell in association with Williams College Museum of Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art, 2009, p. 110, fig. 24.
• Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2005-2010.
• Mazow, Leo G. and Kevin Murphy, Taxing Visions: Financial Episodes in Late Nineteenth-Century American Art., Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, Pennsylvania, and The Huntington Library, Art Collections, San Marino, California, 2010, pp. 41, 72 (checklist); repr. fig. 36, p. 42.
• Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2013-2015.
• Hausberg, Meg, and Victoria Sancho Lobis, Whistler and Roussel: Linked Visions, Art Institute of Chicago, 2015, URL.
• (checklist, cat. no. 1.9).
• Galleries of American Art with loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2015-present (2020).

Journals 1906-Present

• Tedeschi, Martha and Britt Salvesen, 'Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography', Museum Studies , vol. 24, no. 1, 1998, pp. 4-135, fig. 161, at p. 112.

Websites

• Terra Foundation website at http://collection.terraamericanart.org.

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• None.