Wyllie included Thames barges in many of his paintings, watercolours and etchings. He owned and sailed Thames barges and for a while, while making studies for 'Toil, glitter, grime and wealth on a flowing tide', his first and best-known painting of the everyday Thames (1883), he used one as his studio, moored in the Pool of London. Wyllie drew continually and many of his sketches, such as this, he kept for reference when working on new pictures. These are now part of the Wyllie collection which the Museum acquired soon after the artist's death in 1931, and which consists of nearly 7,000 items.