The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 376
A Shop
Date
A Shop may date from between 1885 and 1895, but could even be later. 1
A Shop, The Hunterian
The subject might indicate a date in the 1880s, when it could have been painted in St Ives in 1884 or in Dieppe in 1885, but the colour, brushwork and detail suggests a later date. It could equally have been painted in London or Paris.
Comparable subjects and treatment are seen in Blue and Orange: Sweet Shop y263, A Grey Note: Village Street y265, and Carlyle's Sweetstuff Shop y375.
Images
A Shop, The Hunterian
Subject
Titles
Whistler's original title is not known; only one title is known:
- 'A Shop' (1960, Arts Council). 2
- 'A Shop' (1980, YMSM). 3
Description
A Shop, The Hunterian
A horizontal panel, showing a shop front, painted parallel to the margins of the panel. At left and right are doors, and to left of centre an open door in which a bearded man stands smoking a pipe. The small-paned windows (two panes wide at left, four at right) are dark, with bonneted heads seated inside the window at right. Two toddlers play on the pavement at left, and an older boy peers into the window at far right.
Site
St Ives has been suggested as the site, but it is unlikely that the work dates from as early as 1883/1884. Dieppe has also been suggested, but it could equally have been painted in London or Paris.
Comments
The Hunterian website commented:
'During the last two decades of his life, Whistler painted a series of unassuming shop fronts. The subdued light and the shallow foreground create the effect of a flattened two-dimensional composition. Combined with the undistinguished architecture, a framework for almost abstract composition based on tonal variations is created within this type of work. ' 4
Technique
Technique
A Shop, The Hunterian
A full technical examination was carried out in February 2020 in the School of Culture and Creative Arts Technical Art History laboratory in the Hunterian at Kelvin Hall. Professors Joyce H. Townsend and Margaret F. MacDonald examined the painting under a microscope. A high resolution camera for infra-red reflectography (IRR) was operated by Tess Visser, a PhD student supervised by Professor Christina Young, assisted by Alicia Hughes, Hunterian curatorial assistant. Images were also made of the verso, and of the recto in normal, raking, and ultraviolet light.
It was painted on a panel made from a single thin section of timber (3-4mm thick) with the grain running horizontally the length of the panel. The panel was prepared with a pale grey ground, the brushstrokes of the priming being parallel to the horizontal axis of the panel. The ground includes lead white and some barium sulphate, bone black and possibly some brown earth pigment, a typical mixture for a commercial priming. This pale grey forms the colour of the pavement and the shallow step in front of the shop.
The panel would fit into the slots provided for 2-3 panels in the base of typical paintboxes used by Whistler, though its dimensions may not fit the extant boxes in the University collection. The flattened wet paint on the right short side of the panel suggests he did indeed paint outdoors, by placing the panel in the open box lid, then carrying home the sketch (and perhaps others) in the box. Right-handed, he might have worked across the panel from the left, thus leaving the wettest paint at the right.
There are some vertical drawing lines in graphite pencil. The paint was applied within the drawing lines, with strips of grey priming left deliberately unpainted, for example to suggest light catching the mouldings of the window frame. The shop is rather dark, painted in brown and grey tones on this grey ground, which acts as the lightest tone. The details of figures and windows are tinted in brown. The paint largely conceals the drawn outlines.
The paint is made from lead white and a limited range of slightly transparent earth colours, including red ochre or Indian red, a golden yellow, a warm brown, and Vandyke brown. Microscopical examination indicates that not only the grey shades but often the other colours include bone black as well as the earth colours, which creates a harmonious effect. Whistler likely used several small brushes, one for each colour, so as not to create a muddy overall tone. The yellow stonework on the left is made from mars yellow and zinc white, while the flesh paint for the faces is made from a red earth colour in lead white. Sketchily applied lips were indicated with rapid dashes of bright red vermilion.
The head of the man smoking in the doorway (who was originally placed further to the right, and may originally have been looking down) is painted more thickly than the rest, in economically suggested detail. Very few brushstrokes were used to create each figure, and their features seen through the microscope are sketchier than a first glance would suggest. The old man’s face, black cap, grey beard, and hand holding an implied pipe, were each applied with a single stroke of paint. Near his feet are two small children, the smaller one not completely painted in, while the boy standing on the right is older. Within the shop, two figures or one figure with a child are behind the boy, while two more people can be seen at the other side of the window. All of them are seated. There are traces to right of the doorway that suggest there may have been another figure there, possibly standing on the pavement.
Conservation History
Condition and technical examinations of this painting were carried out in 2001, 2017 and 2020. 5
The panel is slightly warped and small splits have developed along the edges. There is some paint loss at the edges, caused when the panel was slid into the holding grooves of the paint box with still-wet paint, and there are also some drying cracks. 6 The panel is fragile but the paint is generally sound, if thin and uneven. 7
The wood panel has an auxiliary backing and framing device, both made from mahogany-type hardwood, with adhered thin battens having mitred corners. This form of auxiliary backing was probably done after Whistler's death, possibly for exhibition, although no exhibition has been identified before 1960. The chalked inscription on the backing, ‘A Shop’, is in an unknown hand. A glossy and yellowed varnish has been applied overall, including the auxiliary battens: this therefore is not Whistler’s varnish. 8
Beneath it lie spots of a very yellowed varnish over much of the paint, with a trace of fine linear craquelure in the darkest areas. This, also seen on other late sketches on panel, is quite possibly an egg white layer, applied temporarily as a clear varnish to improve the appearance of the panel for photography during or after the artist’s lifetime, but not then removed. The two varnishes give a greenish cast to the whole composition, disguising the intended contrasts of cool grey window, shutters and pavement, the warmer building stone, the pink flesh tones and the warm brown jackets of some of the figures. The typical ageing process for lead white-based paint in oil is causing the formation of lead soap aggregates that are visible under the microscope as small spots along the line of the horizontal brushstrokes for the priming. These emphasise the existing horizontal ridges, as does the gloss of the varnish, which detracts from the detail in this rapid sketch. 9
Frame
37.4 x 47.3 x 3.4 cm.
History
Provenance
- 1903: in Whistler's studio at his death, and bequeathed to his ward and executrix, Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958);
- 1958: bequeathed by Miss R. Birnie Philip to the University of Glasgow.
Exhibitions
No exhibitions are known in Whistler's life time.
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. 386), plate 224, as 'A Shop'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- None.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- Spalding, Frances, Whistler, revised edition, London and New York, 1994, p. 114, fig. 41.
- Spencer, Robin (ed.), Whistler: A Retrospective, New York, 1989, p. 238, pl. 76.
Books, General
- None.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 59) as 'A Shop'.
Journals 1906-Present
- None.
Websites
- The Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk/#/details/ecatalogue/41296.
- Art UK website at https://artuk.org.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: 'Probably painted 1884/90' in YMSM 1980 [more], (cat. no. 376).
2: Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 59).
3: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 386). Andrew McLaren Young (1913-1975) thought it might have been 'Vert et Gris: A Shop, Dieppe', painted in Dieppe in 1897, but this is incorrect. Young, A. McLaren, James McNeill Whistler, Arts Council Gallery, London, and Knoedler Galleries, New York, 1960 (cat. no. 59).
4: Hunterian website at http://collections.gla.ac.uk.
5: Dr (now Professor) Joyce H. Townsend, Tate Britain, Examination report, July 2017. Clare Meredith, condition report, 8 May 2001, Hunterian files.
6: Professor Joyce H. Townsend, Tate Britain, Examination report, February 2020.
7: Meredith 2001, op. cit.
8: Townsend 2017 and Townsend 2020, op. cit. The natural resin-type varnish is evenly applied, over both the painting and the framing device as well, horizontally. The paint does not fluoresce through it.
9: Townsend 2020, op. cit.