A Brig at Anchor

Seymour Haden was the unlikely combination of a surgeon and an etcher. Although he pursued a very successful medical career, he is mostly remembered for his etched work as well as for his writings on etching. He was one of a group of artists, including James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), whose passionate interest in the medium led to the Etching Revival, a movement that lasted well into the twentieth century. The extolling of etching for its inherent spontaneous qualities reached its pinnacle during this time. While the line of the etching needle, Haden wrote, was "free, expressive, full of vivacity," that of the burin was "cold, constrained, uninteresting," and "without identity."
Schneiderman's catalogue designates this the first state of six, "a brig with her bow towards the left lies at anchor; a barge with two small figures at the bow sails towards the brig. In the center distance are moored barges before the far bank. A smaller brig without sails lies in the center foreground. A very faint barge in drypoint is at the left of the brig. With the [etched] inscriptions DASHA (E, on the stern of the center foreground boat, the S reversed) and Seymour Haden." [p. 277]