1. Glazer, Jacobson, McCarthy, Roeder, wall label, 2019:
Whistler was fascinated by street scenes throughout his career, from his early etchings and watercolors of the quiet village of Saverne in the Rhineland, to a busy flower market in northern France, and on to the children in his London neighborhood.
2. Lee Glazer, 2018:
Title change: This was a traveler's sketch, which is to say Whistler did not give it a formal title. However, he wrote "Boutique de Boucher–Saverne," in the left-hand margin of the paper. This is also the title Curry assigned it in his catalogue. Given Whistler's preference for providing locations in his later titles, it follows that the location given in the inscription should be included in the primary title.
1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 167
Having met an Alsatian named Dabo at Gleyre's studio in Paris, Whistler was invited to visit eastern France during the summer of 1858. He began at Saverne, or Zaberne, a village located to the northeast of Nancy. Boutique de Boucher is one of the picturesque village views made during his stay. Whistler drew the entire composition in pencil before adding blocks of wash to focus the viewer upon the butcher and his wares. These are contemplated by a little boy while a young girl sits off to one side. Whistler balanced his group of figures and shop details with large empty spaces that occupy the upper part of the sheet. For most of the ancient building, Whistler let his tinted paper support suggest the soft texture of a plastered façade struck by bright sunlight. Whistler bracketed the composition with the jutting angular wall of the building on the left as well as the vertical block of shadowed space on the far right.
This early view of a little village store presages oils and watercolors of shop fronts made during the 1880s.
International Image Interoperability Framework