To immerse himself in the industrial environment of the docklands, Whistler lived in Wapping during the summer of 1859. Black Lion Wharf was situated between St. Katharine’s Docks (east of the Tower of London) and the London Docks, and provided the artist with the modern, working-class subject matter he sought. This print signals Whistler’s distinctive treatment of space. The foreground figure, rendered in carefully detailed profile, leads the viewer into the picture, while the rest of the foreground, and the middle ground, is indicated in only the most summary way. In contrast, Whistler stops the eye with a detailed rendering of buildings horizontally displayed across the background, along the south shore of the Thames. This juxtaposition of fine detail and summary sketch evoked the kind of modern experience of a city that Whistler sought. He reversed the image in etching the plate, so that when printed, it would correspond to what he actually saw, a practice not always used by his follower Joseph Pennell, whose work is also shown in this gallery.