Eagle Wharf (K 41) from The Thames Set

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Eagle Wharf (K 41) from The Thames Set

Artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903)

Date1859

Dimensions5 3/8 × 8 3/8 in. (13.7 × 21.3 cm)

Mediumetching

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineGift of an anonymous donor

Object number

1915.121

Not on View

Label TextAfter working for a period with Seymour Haden in Kensington Gardens, Whistler realized that he was not as adept as his brother-in-law in the production of landscapes. This realization might have been a blow to his ego, which in turn, contributed to a slow deterioration in the relationship between the two men. Whistler abandoned his attempts at landscape and took up residence along the Thames River in a commercial district of London. He made his first etchings of the river in late July of 1859. An observation by writer Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) in his Salon review of 1859 might have inspired Whistler: “A genre which I can only call the landscape of great cities, by which I mean that collection of grandeurs and beauties which result from a powerful agglomeration of men and monuments—the profound and complex charm of a capital city which has grown old and aged in the glories and tribulations of life.”Exhibition HistoryTMA, American Art in the Time of Homer, November 26, 2008 - January 25, 2009. TMA, Whistler: Influences, Friends, and the Not-So-Friendly, Feb. 26 - May 30, 2010.