UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

barrow, cart, people, shop, street, streetscape.

Variations on the title are as follows:


"'La Rue Haute' Brussels" (1887, Whistler). 1
'High Street Brussels' (1887/1888, Whistler). 2
'High St Brussels' (1890/1891, Whistler). 3
'The High Street, Brussels' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 4
'High Street, Brussels' (1909, Howard Mansfield (1849-1938)). 5


'High Street, Brussels' is the generally recognised title, based on Whistler's original title, but in English.

A view across a street crowded with men, women and children, to a shop with a large many-paned window in the centre and two doorways on either side. People are looking out of windows on the first floor and standing in the doorways below, including, in the second doorway, the conspicuous figure of a tall man with a wide brimmed hat. In the street, at left, is a small market-barrow. To right of the barrow, women are sitting on a stool and a bench.

Brussels, capital city of Belgium. Mansfield comments, 'The Rue Haute, or Hoogstraat, is in the Quartier des Marolles'. 6 This quarter has since been transformed many times, and the houses shown in Whistler's etching do not exist any more. Possible candidates for the site are the houses 387 and 385 rue Haute, which were replaced after the Second World War, and were situated very near the Impasse des Liserons, subject of another etching, Archway, Brussels [344], but the site has not been identified yet with satisfying certainty.