UNIVERSITY of GLASGOW

barrel, river, sailors, sailing ship, warehouse, ship, worker.

There are several variations in the title, as follows:


'Liverpool' (1870s, Whistler). 4
'Leylands steamer' (1877, Charles Augustus Howell (1840?-1890)). 5
'Shipping' (Union League Club, 1881). 6
'Shipping at Liverpool' (1886, Frederick Wedmore (1844-1921)). 7


Whistler's note on an impression of this etching might be considered a place name rather than a title. Howell may have made an assumption that any etching of ships in Liverpool was connected to the shipping line of Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892).

'Shipping at Liverpool' is a descriptive title that differentiates this from other etchings and has been generally accepted.

A view drawn on board a ship, looking towards the stern and showing its mast and stays, and shipping moored in the distance. There are four men working on the ship in the foreground; a man on the left is moving a bulky, shapeless block, while in the centre, a man is kneeling on all fours.

Whistler wrote 'Liverpool' on one impression in the 1870s (). The shipping was probably moored in Liverpool docks, from whence Whistler's mother sailed on the SS Java on 22 June 1867.

The SS Java was a 2,696 gross tons, 337.1ft x 42.9ft, vessel built in 1865 by J. and G. Thomson & Co. of Govan. She is described as having a clipper stern, one funnel and three masts. She was later sold to the Red Star Line and renamed the Zeeland. 8

Whistler's links to Liverpool, apart from as a port of transit to America, started in 1867 when Frederick Richards Leyland (1832-1892), commissioned him to paint The Three Girls y088. On 8 October 1867 he wrote to Leyland: 'What a jolly country house yours must be - and the Gallery 30 feet high! - One of these days I hope to see it - ' 9 This makes it clear that at that point he had not seen Leyland's house at Speke Hall, near Liverpool, but was fishing for an invitation. Whistler and his mother probably first visited Speke in September 1869.