UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

children, landscape, park, people, tree.

Most writers, including Whistler, used the title 'Greenwich Park', but there were occasional variations, as follows:


'On the Thames' (1870s, Whistler). 2
'Greenwich Park' (1870s, Whistler). 3
'Kensington Gardens' (1874, Ralph Thomas, Jr (1840-1876)). 4
'Greenwich Park' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 5


Thomas was incorrect in identifying the scene as Kensington Gardens. Except for the occasion when Whistler wrote 'On the Thames' in pencil below one impression, the artist, Wedmore and other later cataloguers were united in calling this etching 'Greenwich Park'.

The trunks and lower branches of several trees are seen, rising from a grassy slope. The foreground is shaded by their foliage. In the middle distance, in full sun, two people are sitting in the grass, glimpsed between the two largest tree trunks, and to the right, a girl is standing looking away, towards the distant trees over the brow of the hill.

Greenwich Park, on the river Thames in London. The park also appears in Greenwich Pensioner [40].
It was etched, probably at the same time, by Francis Seymour Haden, Sr (1818-1910), in Sub Tegmine, which is reproduced below. Haden's etching is dominated by the landscape, with the pensioner as a comparatively minor detail.
F.S. Haden, Sub Tegmine, 1859, etching,
The Hunterian, GLAHA 1869.

There are comparatively few landscapes in Whistler's etchings, but if parks and gardens are included in the category of landscapes, then he made over two dozen, including Sketches on the Coast Survey Plate [1], Anacapa Island [2], En Plein Soleil [11], Girl in a wood [31], Nursemaid and Child [42], Landscape with Horses [45], The Camp [80], The Storm [81], The Punt [82], Sketching [83], Landscape with Fisherman [85], Sketching, No. 2 [84], Speke Hall: The Avenue [101], Speke Shore [139], The Dam Wood [133], St James's Park [250], The Ramparts, Sandwich [324], The Young Tree [285], The Tow-Path [325], The Canal, Ostend [352], Railway-Station, Voves [387], Zaandam [458], Polichinelle, Jardin du Luxembourg [467] and Little Terrace, Luxembourg Gardens [443].