UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

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Atelier de Bijouterie

Impression: Hunterian Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery
(49909)
Number: 378
Date: 1887/1888
Medium: etching
Size: 127 x 216 mm
Signed: no
Inscribed: no
Set/Publication: no
No. of States: 1
Known impressions: 3
Catalogues: K.433; M.430
Impressions taken from this plate  (3)

KEYWORD

arch, café, children, fish shop, jewellers, people, shop, streetscape.

TITLE

Minor variations on the title are as follows:


'ATELIER DE BIJOUTERIE' (1890s, Whistler). 1
'Atelier Bijouterie' (1900, Caxton Club). 2
'La Bijouterie. - (Jeweller's Shop)' (1905, Paris). 3
'Jeweller's Shop' (1905, ISSPG). 4
'Atelier de Bijouterie' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 5


'Atelier de Bijouterie' (Jewellery Shop) is the original and generally accepted title.

1: Etched on copper plate.

2: Chicago 1900 (cat. no. 273).

3: Paris Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 432).

4: London Mem. 1905 (cat. no. 374).

5: Mansfield 1909 (cat. no. 430).

DESCRIPTION

The ground floor façade of three shops: on the left is a cafe, with men and women sitting outside, and a woman serving them, and what may be a closed umbrella or awning to right. This is bounded on the right by some bushes or flowering branches in two barrels.
In the centre is a heavily rusticated arch, with a woman and baby looking out of the semi-circular lunette at the top, then a signboard reading 'ATELIER DE / BIJOUTERIE' above the heavily barred window below, and a small rectangular grating just above the pavement. Above the arch is a large sign that is largely illegible, but may read: '[Msr VAGHT..E?] G. HAAG Sr / [BOUT]IQUE DE BIJOUTE[RIE] / ----SUR ET MED[AILL]ES ... [C]ROIX D---OL-'.
To right is another arched shop, with a large signboard reading 'SAGET / GRAVEUR' followed by largely illegible letters, possibly 'MIROFAGES … / ...C...S…C...RIFF...C PO-ISONS'. The shop space below is divided into two, the left half blank, and the right containing a group of women standing and seated, talking and working, in the open door, against a shadowy interior.
Between these two shops is a small boy, seen from behind, looking towards the jewellery shop, and above him a small sign that may read '9'.

SITE

Not identified. It could be a shop in Paris or Brussels. It is strange that this etching, which is a complex composition, is not listed in studio inventories by Whistler or his wife.

DISCUSSION

Similar subjects etched in Brussels include Petite Rue au Beurre, Brussels [341], High Street, Brussels [343], Archway, Brussels [344] and The Barrow - Quartier des Marolles, Brussels [346]; and in Paris, Quai de Montebello [385], Passages de l'Opéra [386], and Sunflowers, Marché St Germain, Paris [437].