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Preview image of work. etching on paper,  Jewelry Store Window 4885

1961.69.126

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Jewelry Store Window

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Artist

John Sloan (Loch Haven, Pennsylvania, 8/27/1871 - 9/7/1951, Hanover, New Hampshire)

Title

Jewelry Store Window

Creation Date

1906

Dimensions

5 11/16 in. x 3 3/4 in. (14.5 cm. x 9.6 cm.)

Object Type

print

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

etching on paper

Credit Line

Bequest of George Otis Hamlin

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1961.69.126

With a wry sense of humor, American artists John Sloan and Rockwell Kent reflect upon new inventions and their impact upon modes of socializing and entertainment. Jewelry Store Window suggests the way in which the electrification of streetlamps opened up the potential for nocturnal rambles through urban areas. If Sloan’s 1906 print suggests companionship, his 1926 depiction of the new technology of radiology suggests alienation, as physicians carefully study his organs with seemingly little regard for him has an individual. By a similar token, Rockwell Kent’s Party Wire seems to question the value of the telephone—often arranged on a multi-user “party” line in its early years. Precarious in its installation, the tangled line seems to fix its users in positions apart from one another and simultaneously raises prescient questions about the relationship of new communications technologies to personal privacy.