Mannequins, children's clothes

Artist Eugène Atget (photographer) (French, 1857–1927)

Maker Berenice Abbott (printer) (American, 1898–1991)

Dateca. 1925 (negative); printed later

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 9 1/8 × 6 3/4 inches (23.2 × 17.1 cm);
Mount: 14 × 11 inches (35.6 × 28 cm);
Mat: 18 × 14 inches (45.7 × 35.6 cm)

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAcquired through the Membership Purchase Fund

Terms

Photographs
Gelatin silver prints
Business districts
Windows

Object number69.149

Label CopyBerenice Abbott met Atget in Paris in the 1920s, and remained a lifelong admirer and promoter of his work. This photograph is one of several Atget made of this particular shop window; using a technique Abbott would adopt (see cat. no. 96), he uses the reflectivity of the plate glass to combine an image from the present with one from the past; here, the display of children’s clothing in the shop mingles with the reflection of the austere Gobelins factory across the street. This building, constructed in 1912, is now a museum, but was at the time an extension of the famous workshop of the Gobelins that had provided exquisite furnishings for the French kings since the time of Louis XIV. Perhaps Atget intended to subtly juxtapose the products of the Gobelins and their royal patrons with the bourgeois pastime of decking out children in the latest fashions (represented by the jumpers, sun hats, sailor suit, and suit for first communion), still important to Parisian parents today.

(Andrew C. Weislogel, "Mirror of the City: The Printed View in Italy and Beyond, 1450–1940," catalogue accompanying an exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Stuart M. Blumin, and presented at the Johnson Museum August 11–December 23, 2012)

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