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Black Lion Wharf

1859
Not on view
When he moved to London in 1859, Whistler lodged near the Thames in the docklands south of Tower Bridge and began to make etchings of the river. New visual modes are explored here, with cropped forms and distinct spatial zones recalling Japanese woodblock prints—a genre he began collecting in Paris. Borrowing an effect from photographs, he renders the distant warehouses in sharp focus but treats closer forms broadly. Made in 1859, this etching was not published until 1871 in A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames and Other Subjects (the "Thames Set"). That year, Whistler also reproduced it on the wall behind his mother in the now famous painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black (Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Black Lion Wharf
  • Series/Portfolio: Thames Set ("A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames and Other Subjects" 1871)
  • Artist: James McNeill Whistler (American, Lowell, Massachusetts 1834–1903 London)
  • Date: 1859
  • Medium: Etching, printed in black ink on extremely fine cream Japan paper; fourth state of four (Glasgow)
  • Dimensions: Plate: 5 7/8 × 8 11/16 in. (15 × 22.1 cm)
    Sheet: 7 1/16 × 9 3/4 in. (18 × 24.7 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1917
  • Object Number: 17.3.35
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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James McNeill Whistler
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James McNeill Whistler
1887
Early Morning, James McNeill Whistler American, Lithotint with scraping, on a prepared half-tint ground, printed in black ink on cream wove paper; third state of four (Chicago)
Early Morning
James McNeill Whistler
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