Fruit Stall

James McNeill Whistler's etching Fruit Stall depicts one of Venice's typical small shops lining the fondamenta, or paved walkway along a canal. Viewed from the far side of the canal, above two moored gondolas, the outdoor fruit stall is framed by an awning that shades a seated woman and toddler facing the fruit seller and her basket of fruit. This charming grouping is flanked by a standing woman holding a child and, to the right, a darkened doorway where a woman bends over to inspect the produce under the gaze of a man deep in the shadows of the shop's interior. The blank expanse of the architectural façade is further varied by three asymmetrically arranged barred windows and a drain pipe. As in his etching, Bead Stringers (TF 1992.145), Whistler focuses primarily on the compositional arrangement of figures rather than the architectural setting.

One of the fifty etchings Whistler executed during his fourteen-month stay in Venice in 1879–80, this work was among those that perplexed some English critics because of Whistler's choice of humble scenes of everyday life over the more important historical or cultural subjects Venice offered. In 1886, Fruit Stall was published in Whistler's series titled "A Set of Twenty-six Etchings," known as the "Second Venice Set."

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