Date: N.D.
Dimensions: 18 × 20.5cm
Medium: Lithograph
Collection: Niland Collection
Provenance: Presented by The Friends of The National Collections of Ireland

Description

One of several images of shops that he created, Maunder’s Fish Shop, Chelsea dates to Whistler’s second period of lithography which was partly inspired by the resurgence of interest in the medium among French artists including Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard. Mrs Elizabeth Maunder’s fish-shop had been long established on Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where Whistler lived for a period (1). Chelsea is now one of the most expensive addresses in London but during the 1890s it was a largely working class neighborhood. The presence of Whistler and other artistic figures, including the Irish art dealer and collector Hugh Lane, contributed to the gentrification of the area.

1. Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours, A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven & London, 1995, p.569.

Written by Riann Coulter