Three Cent Soup

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903) Three Cent Soup, ca. 1859 Etching and drypoint Mrs. F.F. Prentiss Bequest, 1944.77

Whistler presents a typical cheap Parisian restaurant with working-class clients seated on wooden benches. The scene takes place at night. Some of the customers are slumped over from exhaustion, sleeping beneath the illumi-nated gaslight in the center of the ceiling.