Billingsgate

1859
Original etching and drypoint

Signed and dated in the plate "Whistler.1859." lower right. According to Kennedy, this impression is from the 6th state of 8 (with six figures completed, lengthening of the masts and slight changes to the sky). Catalogue reference: Kennedy 47 vi/viii

The sites that Whistler etched along the Thames are almost unrecognizable today because of the devastation of the World War II Blitz and a century of remodeling.  Billingsgate was the site of a Fish Market on the north bank of the river between the London Bridge (which can be seen in the background) and the Thames Tunnel.  Because the composition was not reversed on the copper plate, it appears backwards in the printed etching.