UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

awning, boat, canal, children, city, fruit, gondola, man standing, people, shop. stall, woman.

The only variations in title were in the punctuation, as in the following examples:


'Fruit Stall' (1883, F.A.S.) 1
'Fruit Stall' (1886, Dowdeswell's). 2
'Fruit-stall' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 3


The title as exhibited and published was 'Fruit Stall' and most later cataloguers used this form of the title.

In the foreground is a canal with, on the right, the stern and prow of two boats. The fruit stall is on a narrow pavement directly across the canal in front of a house. Above the door of the house is an iron grid; in the centre is a window, a little higher than the door, and to its left is another window, level with the grid. Two women are sitting in the centre under an awning, in front of a table. To their right is a box or stand for goods. A woman with a baby stands in front and to left of the stall, and another women to right, looking to her right where there is another table with goods displayed. A figure stands behind her, in front of a doorway.

For a description of later variations, see STATES.

Although the site has not been precisely identified, it was probably drawn in the working class area of Venice near the Via Garibaldi, and close to where Whistler stayed in the summer and autumn of 1880.

Like Turkeys 236, the etching shows local Venetians going about their daily work. This is the earliest of five fruit shops etched by Whistler. Little Greengrocer's Shop, Chelsea 264; T. A. Nash's Greengrocer's Shop 298 and J.H. Woods' Fruit Shop, Chelsea 327 were etched in London about 1887 (that is, shortly after Whistler had completed printing the Venetian Fruit-Stall for Dowdeswell's; a few years later, he etched Greengrocer's Shop, Paris 471. He also painted two oils, Pink and Grey: Fruiterer, Fulham y342, which was exhibited at Dowdeswell's in 1886, and The Greengrocer's Shop, Paris y372; two vivid watercolours, Terrey's Fruit Shop, Chelsea m1002 and Flower market: Dieppe m1026 as well as drawing one pastel, Chelsea fruit shop m1117. The format he usually adopted is that seen in Fruit-Stall, and shows the shop, or stall, seen directly opposite the artist (and viewer) and drawn parallel to the edges of the plate.

In different states of Fruit Stall, Whistler rearranged the figures, altering the relationship between the figures and the enveloping lights and shadows. As with Bead Stringers 235 there were considerable alterations to the figures in numerous preliminary states before the main edition was printed.