A view down Ratcliff Wharves from the water. Strongly etched lines define a beached lighter on the left, and the extensive crevices and shadows on the buildings which line the shore. In front of the lighter a man on the shore strides across the image. Men work on the lighter and a man in a rowboat pulls up to the shore.

Ratcliff was an area on the Wapping waterfront. During the 19th century it was a notorious slum containing seedy dance halls and down-market brothels. The area was inhabited by sailors, prostitutes, watermen and dockers from the nearby docks. The tall warehouse immediately above the lighter on the left bears a sign inscribed 'Eagle Wharf/ To Let'. This may be slightly misleading artist's licence since the river frontage does not correspond at all with a 1937 record photo in the Museum of London collection showing the Wapping waterfront from Eagle Sufferance Wharf to Wapping New Stairs, with Eagle Wharf as a far more substantial and wider building in the middle. Signed by artist.

Norman Janes (1892-1980) was a British Artist and Honorary Secretary of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers between 1945 and 1962. Janes attended the Slade School of Fine Arts, the Central School of Art and Crafts, and the Royal College of Art. His teachers included Henry Tonks, William Palmer Robins, Sir Frank Short and Malcolm Osborne.