Images of shop assistants - class and gender in french urban environments during the 1880’s.

The aim of this study is to examine the representation of class and gender in two French paintings by Édouard-Jean Dambourgez and James Tissot from the 1880’s, depicting women working outside the home. I have examined how their roles as shop assistants are captured and if the male gaze, and subsequently the woman as an object, has any explanatory value in the paintings. The artworks were analysed using a somewhat reworked version of Erwin Panofskys Iconography, as well as through marxist and feminist theories. The analysis discusses how class and gender are produced in these paintings and I have reached the conclusion that they can be produced in different ways.