The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Shop Front: Dieppe dates from 1897/1899.

Shop Front: Dieppe, The Hunterian

It was catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 1517).

Images

Subject

Site

Shop Front: Dieppe, The Hunterian

Dieppe, a port and seaside town on the coast of France.

Technique

Technique

Shop Front: Dieppe, The Hunterian

The slatted shutters and the bird cages, drawn with wiry pen lines, were not painted. The surface was freely covered with washes painted with a fully loaded brush. Some of the washes dried to a hard edge. There are signs of alterations in the door, where a double line of pen runs from the left to the middle of the door, just under the cage, and below, rough chalk outlines indicate that Whistler intended to add further details, which cannot be identified.

Conservation History

The paper is a pale greyish brown with a neat vertical grain, and tiny golden flecks of wood-stalk.

History

Provenance

• 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death and bequeathed to his sister-in-law Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
• 1958: bequeathed by Miss Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.

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. 1517) as 'Shop Front: Dieppe'.

Websites

• The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.