Calais Pier, after Turner

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."
This example of Haden's work, based on a famous painting by Turner, shows fishermen struggling to bring boats in high waves to an adjacent pier. Harrington's early catalogue describes it as an example of "Trial Proof(b)" with "only the sails of the largest fishing-boat slightly shaded. The left half of the foreground up to the hulls of the fishing-boat is almost entirely blank. The distant ship has no masts." [p. 78]
Schneiderman later designated the print a second state, noting: "The sails of the largest fishing boat, at the left of center plate, were lightly etched and the shading on the pier etched heavily. The lower part of the mainmast of the distant ship in center is not indicated. The water in the left foreground is roughly indicated, but before the strong crest. There is no work in the sky." [p. 287]