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'Limehouse, 1859' by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (PAF5482)
On hot August days as I cycle home from the National Maritime Museum there is a secret 'beach' along the river in Limehouse where I sometimes stop off. Of course it is not a beach in the same sense as the locations that we will see in NMM's forthcoming exhibition
'Beside the Seaside', but somehow it still works. You can watch the boats moving up and down the Thames, see the waves lapping at the shore and, at low tide, comb the edges for all kinds of things that have been washed up.
In the Museum we have a really wonderful etching of Limehouse by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). American born, French trained and British based, the painter's legacy can be seen throughout the history of art, making this a very special part of our collections. This etching is one of five currently on show in the
'Art and the Sea' display and is from a series of 16 etchings that were published in 1871, 12 years after the artist made the plate.
Whistler moved to Wapping in 1859 and created a number of paintings and etchings of working class maritime London. Then the area was characterised by the incredible smell that emanated from the Thames. Victorian society associated such smells as symptoms of a perceived lack of morals of the area. Whistler, however, had a more detached view as he sought to capture a sense of modern life, for him encapsulated by the working river Thames in London. From his base in Wapping, the artist captured a fast disappearing way of life as the river embankment was developed.
In the background of this etching two buildings can be seen - one marked with the name 'Frederick Vin and Co, Rope and Sailmakers' and the other 'Smith and Son, Hermitage Coal Wharf.' The viewpoint is at standing eye level, which draws you right into the scene. In the foreground a man is depicted on a boat carrying cargo, looking back to tall masts fading off to the horizon. There is a real sense of immediacy in Whistler's Thames prints, making them quite different from his better-known paintings of the area. Although the activities of Limehouse that I will cycle past later today are very different from those Whistler reveals, the beach where I pause for thought is unmistakeably the same place.