The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

The Shop Window dates from the late 1880s, possibly between 1888 and 1890. ¹

The Shop Window, Private collection

It is not easy to date but the technique and the tiny butterfly signature suggest this date.

Images

Subject

Titles

Possible titles include:

• 'A shop' (1899, Leinster Hall, Dublin). ²
• 'The Shop Window' (date unknown, label). ³
• 'The Shop Window' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

'The Shop Window' is the preferred title.

Description

The Shop Window, private collection

A small shop, painted in horizontal format. The shop-front, with a strip of pavement or cobbles in front, is painted parallel to the edge of the panel. An elderly woman in black with a white apron, wearing a black bonnet, and a small girl in a black dress, red blouse, and white pinafore, stand in the dark doorway at left. The wall of the shop is painted white. There are glimpses of goods through the wide, multi-paned window (4 x 3 panes to left and 4 x 4 to right of the dividing strut). A closed door is partly seen at right.

Site

Possibly Chelsea, London, but equally possibly Dieppe or a small town in Brittany.

Technique

Technique

The Shop Window, private collection

It is thinly painted, with a very small pointed brush used for the precise details of the features and clothing of the figures, and broader, bolder brushstrokes on the shop-front.

Conservation History

Unknown.

Frame

Unknown.

History

Provenance

• 1896: sold by Whistler to Alexander Arnold Hannay (1858-1927).
• Date unknown: John Levy Gallery, New York.
• 1940s: Mrs Florence Wickham Lueder (1880-1962);
• 1960: bought from her by Hirschl & Adler, New York art dealers, February 1960;
• 1960: sold by them to Charles Kohlmeyer (1909-1988) in June 1960;
• 1988: bequeathed to his widow, Janet Lauer Kohlmeyer (1910-1991), Metairie, Louisiana;
• 1991: sold at auction, Christie's, New York, 22 May 1991 (lot 248).

In a letter from 4 Whitehall Court to Ernest Brown of The Fine Art Society, Whistler wrote, 'These two particular little pictures are gone - I mean the Girl on the Sofa and the old woman and child in the doorway.' ⁵ The purchaser was A. Arnold Hannay, London, who lent the shopfront to an exhibition in Dublin in 1899 (cat. no. 82) as 'A shop', the owner being named in the catalogue as 'A. N. Hannay'.

Although the painting is believed to be in a private collection, the identity of the current owner is, at this point (2020) unknown.

Exhibitions

• 1899: A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 82) as 'A shop'.

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. 377), plate 238, as 'The Shop Window'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• A Loan Collection of Modern Paintings, Leinster Hall, Dublin, 1899 (cat. no. 82) as 'A shop'.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• None.

Books, General

• None.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITION:

• 'Notes, Harmonies, Nocturnes: Small Works by James McNeill Whistler, Knoedler, New York, 1984 (cat. no. 92).

SALE:

• Christie's, New York, 22 May 1991 (lot 248).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• None.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 346).

Other

• None.