Composition

Old Battersea Bridge, Private Collection

The Broad Bridge, from Picadilly, The Art Institute, Chicago (1917.543)

This is a study for the lithograph The Broad Bridge c011.

Technique

The lithographer, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) said when Whistler was asked to draw two lithographs for the new magazine Piccadilly in 1878,

"he forthwith made two studies of Old Battersea Bridge on brown paper, and brought them to the Wellington Street office, and there and then drew them on a fresh stone. `The long Bridge' and `The Tall Bridge' were at once printed". 1