- Catalogue number
-
SO 0041
- Artist
-
Matthew White Ridley
- Printer
-
Imprimerie Delâtre
- Date
-
1861
- Medium
-
Etching
- Dimensions [to plate mark]
-
227 x 355 mm
- Publication
-
Société des Aquafortistes. Eaux-fortes modernes. Oeuvres inédites et originales: troisième année, troisième volume, Cadart et Luquet, Paris 1865
Subject
A collier brig beached on the Thames foreshore, apparently at Chelsea. Although there was a large coal depot on the south side of the river at Chelsea, it is unclear to me how a ship with tall masts, such as the one depicted, could have passed the bridges above the Upper Pool. James McNeill Whistler seems to have painted the very similar composition, The Thames in Ice (1860) from his preferred locations around Wapping and Rotherhithe, very far away from Chelsea.1
Inscribed in the plate: ‘W. Ridley sculp. À Chelsea, Prés Londres, Paris publie par CADART & LUQUET Editeurs, 75 Rue Richelieu, Imp. Delâtre, Rue St. Jacques, 303, Paris.’
Cadart & Luquet blind stamp, bottom centre.
1. Originally titled The Twenty-fifth of December 1860. On the Thames. The first owner of Whistler's painting was Francis Seymour Haden, with whom Whistler then lived at 62 Sloane Street, a short walk from the River Thames at Chelsea. Speculation is invited about why he was on the other side of London on an icy Christmas Day, rather than at home with his sister's affluent family.
Printing
The plate was owned by Cadart & Luquet in Paris, and was included in the 1865 folio of the Société des Aquafortistes. This impression is from Cadart's ‘shop stock’ as it features the standard Cadart title and ownership inscriptions, which were omitted on impressions in the subscriber's folio.
