The Barber's Shop in the Mews
Medium
lithograph in black on laid paper
Dimensions
image: 19.2 × 12 cm (7 9/16 × 4 3/4 in.) sheet: 25.4 × 19.5 cm (10 × 7 11/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.8763
Art Historical Context
Step into the everyday charm of late Victorian London with James McNeill Whistler'sThe Barber's Shop in Mews* (1896), a delicate black lithograph on laid paper. Measuring just 19.2 × 12 cm, this intimate print captures a humble barber's shop tucked into the mews—those narrow stable alleys behind grand homes, often alive with working-class trades. Whistler, the American-born expatriate famed for his "art for art's sake" Aestheticism and misty nocturnes, turned to lithography in his later years to evoke subtle atmospheres with remarkable fluidity. Lithography, a planographic technique where gre...
About the Artist
James McNeill Whistler · 1834–1903
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American-born painter and printmaker who became a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement and pioneer of Tonalism and Japonisme. He revolutionized art by championing "art for art's sake" and treating paintings as visual equivalents of musical compositions, titling works as "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes" to emphasize formal qualities o...