The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Flower shop, Dieppe dates from 1897/1899.

Flower shop, Dieppe, Terra Foundation for the Arts

It is catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1514).

Images

Subject

Site

Flower shop, Dieppe, Terra Foundation for the Arts

Whistler visited Dieppe on the French coast several times at this period.

Technique

Technique

Flower shop, Dieppe, Terra Foundation for the Arts

A geometrical composition, grey brush outlines, and washes of pale yellow ochre and grey painted very freely. The Terra Foundation website comments:

'The rectilinear forms of windows, door, and lintel create a flat grid interrupted by the voids of the interior spaces open to the street and by the forms of two women, one outside the window and another standing just inside the doorway. Flower Shop, Dieppe is vertical in orientation and—for Whistler—uncharacteristically symmetrical in its organization, but the spontaneous application of thin watercolor wash, which in places allows the white paper to appear like flashes of sunlight on the building’s façade, relieves the rigor of the composition. Whistler’s loose watercolor technique dissolves details, inviting the impression of the shop front as a pure abstract, geometric design on the smooth paper surface.' ¹

History

Provenance

• 1901: probably bought from Whistler by Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932), New York dealer;
• Date unknown: bought by Harris Whittemore (1864-1927);
• 1927: passed to the J. H. Whittemore Company;
• 1948: sold at auction, Parke Bernet, New York, 19-20 May 1948 (lot 152, repr.) as 'Flower Shops - Dieppe', and bought by Macbeth, New York dealers, for C. R. Robertson;
• 1950: returned to Macbeth, and sold to J. Ryan, New York, in February 1953;
• Date unknown: bequeathed to a lady;
• 1994: sold through M. Crowdell to Daniel J. Terra (1911-1996), Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago;
• 1996: bequeathed to the Terra Foundation for the Arts;
• 2004: following the closure of the Terra Museum of American Art, works on paper were transferred on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago.

For further details see MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1514).

Exhibitions

It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

Bibliography

Catalogues Raisonnés

• MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 1514) as 'Flower shop, Dieppe'.

Books, General

• Regard sur cinq années d'expositions (Five years of Exhibitions at a Glance), Terra Foundation for the Arts, Chicago, 1997, p. 77, repr. p. 76.

Catalogues 1906-Present

• 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.
• Le Passage à Paris: les artistes américains en France, 1860–1930 (Passing through Paris: American Artists in France, 1860–1930), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, 2005-2006.

Websites

• Terra Foundation, 2018, website.