The fantasy of window shopping in New York City

When Ashcan artist Everett Shinn painted this woman seemingly spellbound by the stylish mannequins behind a department store window, the concept of “window shopping” was a relatively new phenomenon.

Shinn completed the painting, simply titled “Window Shopping,” in 1903. It perfectly captures the consumerism ushered in by the rise of the Gilded Age city’s magnificent emporiums, where the latest fashions were on display on the Flatiron and Chelsea streets that once made up Ladies Mile.

“Shinn may have appreciated the way shop windows, like the vaudeville stage, created a fantasy space that functioned also as a site of cultural exchange,” art consultant Janay Wong explained on a Sotheby’s page focusing on the painting.

“Moreover, he may have been drawn to the ‘modernity’ of the shop window, which had only recently come into being, the result of new technologies that made possible the production of plate glass, colored glass, and electric light.”

A wet and windy night in Washington Square

Washington Square enchants in Everett Shinn’s depiction of a blustery and busy night there in 1910. A member of the Ashcan School, Shinn favored scenes of city life and social realism.

“He painted tenement fires, bread lines, and theater scenes, but he especially liked to depict the parks and squares of the city; Washington Square, a 13.5 acre park in the midst of New York City’s Greenwich Village, was his favorite,” states the website for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which owns this painting.

When asked for his opinion on the most beautiful place in New York, Shinn replied, “When I want to be sure to find beauty I go to Washington Square. . . . No matter what the conditions may be under which I see it—no matter what my mood may be—I feel almost sure that it will appeal to me as beautiful.”