The wharves, warehouses, alehouses, fishermen, and dockworkers of the Thames, along with the river and its many bridges, were important subjects for Whistler. The Old Battersea Bridge was a favorite, and Whistler depicted it frequently in drawings, etchings, lithographs, lithotints, paintings, and even on a wall of his house near the river. The eighteenth-century wood bridge was slated to be replaced with a new stone bridge in the early 1880s, so this print is a kind of memorial. Though the view was taken from life, the composition incorporates features of Japanese woodcuts, including a low vantage point, a high horizon, a framed view, and large empty areas. Whistler was a master printer who constantly experimented with paper, ink, and printing pressure to achieve different effects. Here he left a thin film of ink on the plate to create a sense of the flowing river surface.
From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)