1887, James McNeill Whistler, Clothes-Exchange, Houndsditch, No. 2 -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label: Whistler's interior view of an iron and glass building located in Houndsditch, part of London's East End, pictures the lively trade in secondhand, cast-off, and pawned clothing. Wholesale and retail purchasers included not only shopkeepers but also artisans, clerks, and even gentlemen. In August 1877, a reporter spotted Whistler "sketching the picturesque corners of 'Cloth Fair," adding, "the artist has an eye for business... and 'slumming' is a pursuit much indulged in by the élite of society." John Thomson's close-up photograph captures an old clothes shop in another neighborhood about three miles west of Houndsditch.
Link to other paintings from the exhibition Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change.
Link to other Whistler paintings.
1887, James McNeill Whistler, Clothes-Exchange, Houndsditch, No. 2 -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label: Whistler's interior view of an iron and glass building located in Houndsditch, part of London's East End, pictures the lively trade in secondhand, cast-off, and pawned clothing. Wholesale and retail purchasers included not only shopkeepers but also artisans, clerks, and even gentlemen. In August 1877, a reporter spotted Whistler "sketching the picturesque corners of 'Cloth Fair," adding, "the artist has an eye for business... and 'slumming' is a pursuit much indulged in by the élite of society." John Thomson's close-up photograph captures an old clothes shop in another neighborhood about three miles west of Houndsditch.
Link to other paintings from the exhibition Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change.
Link to other Whistler paintings.