Eric Eunson added:
Old Woman Fish Seller and Boy
'Waiting for Change'
"A routine browse of Adam Diston's name
threw up the Catalogue of Records from the RPS Annual Exhibitions.
Adam Diston exhibited there 28 times between 1870 and 1892.
In 1870 he displayed four pictures
including 'The
Broken Toe' and another entitled: 'Waiting for Change'.
This is exactly what I deduced was going
on in the fishwife photo. The old woman leans on the wainscotting to
support the heavy creel on her back, but she has put down her head
creel which looks empty.
Perhaps the absent figure through the half
open door has bought the contents. She can wait for her few coppers,
must get these straight in the cold press at this time of year.
Meanwhile a boy customer has come into the
shop and leans on the counter. Like a narrative painter, Diston is
inviting us to tell our own story
This isn't a bar, not with a boy and
woman in it. I've tried to discern what the objects hanging on the
wall are, and wonder if the sign on the wall is legible in the
original. It looks like an ironmonger's perhaps."
Eric Eunson, Leven, Fife, Scotland: September 29,
2009
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