Drawing of a clothes shop

Commentary
Drawing of a clothes shop
Accession number: 
1941.8.178
Collection: 
Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Drawing in pencil by Arthur Evans of a man and a woman, standing and sitting in front of several articles of clothing, captioned ‘Croats & Tailors shop’, identified as a depiction of a stall selling clothes in Zagreb, Croatia.

Artist: Arthur John Evans
Date of drawing: August 1875
Continent: Europe
Geographical area: Southern Europe
Country: Croatia
Region/Place: Zagreb
Cultural group: European Croat
Format: Drawing
Size: 82 x 101 mm
Acquisition: Joan Evans. Donated August 1941

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Primary documentation: ‘[p.588] Dr. JOAN EVANS, from the property of the late SIR ARTHUR EVANS, Youlbury, Boars Hill, Oxford. [List of items follows]’; ‘[p.590] 21 Original pencil sketches, types & scenery. BALKANS’: Pitt Rivers Museum accession records (Donations X, 1937–1941), pp.588, 590. Annotations on drawing: ‘Croats & Tailors shop/ Agram [Zagreb]’ (written in pencil above drawing).

Research notes: It has been identified by Philip Grover that this original drawing was used as the artwork for a woodcut engraving by ‘W. J. M.’ (initials of engraver) subsequently published in the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic, 9 October 1875, p.348, captioned at bottom of the page ‘1. Croatian Tailor’s Shop, Agram.’ The same engraving was also published in Arthur J. Evans, Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot during the Insurrection, August and September 1875 (London, 1876), p.4, printed with the caption ‘Croatian Clothes-shop, Agram [Zagreb]’. Evans recorded in the volume: ‘The headings over the shops are almost entirely Sclavonic. Brilliant, quite Oriental, are the stores where the gay Croatian costumes are hung out to tempt the passing peasant’: Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot, p.4. Note that Agram is the German name for Zagreb, Croatia.