Longshore men

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) · 1859

In Whistler's day, genteel people who could afford to purchase etchings generally avoided unnecessary trips to working-class sections of cities. For such people, Whistler's etchings of the Thames riverfront provided unusually intimate glimpses of what a contemporary critic described as "that class of hard-fisted, square-shouldered, solid-faced men, on whom the odour of tar and tobacco is equally important."