This is one of a group of etchings created by the artist during 1879 and sold to the Fine Arts Society of London which helped keep the artist from the brink of financial ruin after the time and expense of his court case with the  controversial art critic John Ruskin. In spite of the financial pressures that he was facing, the etchings created during this period lack the tentative uncertainty found in the plates of the mid-1870s. These pieces are viewed as stylistically transitional between the realist style of the Thames etchings of 1859 and the “impressionist” style of the Venice etchings of 1879-80.

Whistler was concentrating on the quieter aspects of the Thames in these new etchings rather than on the shipping activity that had interested him twenty years earlier. In their openness and serenity, they exemplify his attention to the principles of harmony and balance, which had attracted him to Japanese prints in many of his earlier works.

Reference: Kennedy, 182 ii/ii.