Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)

Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)

James McNeill Whistler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In a scene near his new lodgings on Lindsey Row in Chelsea, Whistler responds to the calm of the Thames at dawn. A beached rowboat lies across the foreground and small sailboats cluster around a wooden dock at center. Beyond is a wooden ferry terminal rests on Cadogan Pier and Battersea Bridge extends across the river. Drypoint has been combined with etching to create soft effects evocative of misty water under an overcast sky. The print probbaly was made in 1863, but not published until in 1871 in A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames and Other Subjects (the "Thames Set").


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)Early Morning, Battersea (Battersea Dawn) (Cadogan Pier)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.