The Tall Bridge

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) · 1878

Unlike Whister's early lithotints that were drawn directly on the printing stone, The Broad Bridge was based on a preliminary charcoal drawing. Whistler traced the drawing onto his stone, going over the resulting outline with a crayon before completing the design by adding washes. When he was almost finished, he scraped away some of the tone to lighten the sky between piers and add highlights to the water. Although the image is in reverse, the view is through the wooden piers of old Battersea Bridge, with the warehouses and smokestacks of Battersea silhouetted against the sky.