Limehouse
Medium
Lithotint with scraping and incising, on a prepared half-tint ground; first state of three (Chicago) printed in black ink on off-white wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 6 13/16 x 10 7/16 in. (17.3 x 26.5 cm) Sheet: 11 3/16 × 16 1/8 in. (28.4 × 41 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Paul F. Walter, 1984
Accession Number
1984.1119.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
James McNeill Whistler’s *Limehouse* (1878) captures the moody essence of London’s gritty East End along the Thames River, where weathered houses line the waterfront amid boats and ships. A pioneering figure in Aestheticism and Tonalism, Whistler harmony and suggestion over narrative detail, evoking the hazy, atmospheric quality of industrial London during the late Victorian era. This print his fascination with the Thames as a recurring motif, blending urban realism with poetic abstraction. Rendered in lithotint—a sophisticated lithography technique—Whistler worked on a prepared half-tint gro...
About the Artist
James McNeill Whistler · 1834–1903
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American-born painter and printmaker who became a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement and pioneer of Tonalism and Japonisme. He revolutionized art by championing "art for art's sake" and treating paintings as visual equivalents of musical compositions, titling works as "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes" to emphasize formal qualities o...