Some of Whistler’s earliest etchings and drypoints where made in the late 1850s and early 60s, a time when the artist was frequently passing between Paris, the locus of his studies, and London, where his wealthy sister and brother-in-law had set up residence. Two groups of these images, known as the “French Set” and the “Thames Set” were conceived and executed almost simultaneously. 

In the “French Set” Whistler depicts Parisian friends and acquaintances. His portrait of Bibi Lalouette, the daughter of a Parisian café owner, is a sensitive image that combines delicate lines in the child’s face and curls with looser, freer lines that indicate the folds of clothing and the cushion on which she sits. Whistler’s portrait of the cello player Becquet, “who lived in his studio among ‘disorder and his cello,’” captures the musician’s direct gaze and suggests that the musician and his instrument are inseparable by dissolving the lines of the cello into Becquet’s body.

The “Thames Set” focuses on landscape and the busy atmosphere of London’s working docks. Of this series, Rotherhithe met with tremendous critical success wherein contemporary reviews compared Whistler’s ability to manipulate the medium to the talent of Rembrandt. Whistler meticulously records the view from the balcony of the Angel Inn lingering on the masts and rigging of ships and on the brick and wood exteriors of the dock buildings. Two patrons of the inn, seated in conversation in the foreground, draw the viewer’s eye out from the enclosed balcony to the busy river scene and the London cityscape beyond. The Lime Burner demonstrates a similar interest in the manipulation of space and movement of light. Here, the viewer’s eye is encouraged to travel through a series of shadowy doorways and alleys past the lime burner to the open river.

The Bell Gallery collection includes ten prints and one drawing by Whistler given by Mr. and Mrs. John Simmon, the Carnegie Collection, Miss Annette Ham, and as a bequest of Reginald Poland in memory of Prof. William Carey Poland.