London: Moonlight over the Lower Pool in 1897 (EDITION SOLD OUT, 1 LEFT)

Tower Bridge, with its counterbalanced bascules that pivot upward to allow oceangoing vessels to pass through, is symbolic of all that adds up to the great port of London on the River Thames. This is the entrance to the Pool, the head of navigation on the river for deep-water ships.

Nothing better typifies this period, than the hansom cab, the elegant transportation of the well-to-do: The body painted glossy black, the spoked wheels giving a wonderful opportunity to reflect light from different sources, ties the composition together nicely. The horse looking toward the American bark undertow guides the eye to the core of the subject.

Since it is tidal for many miles upstream at this location, the Thames has always presented unusual difficulties for the pilots of vessels navigating its congested and busy hub. When docking a large vessel under tow, precise timing is essential. A ship can be maneuvered into a berth only at exactly slack tide, particularly if it has to be turned around. The barges, London's commercial lifeline to larger ships at downriver docks, were and still are towed upstream by tugs in clusters of four or six. In these earlier times, however, the barges were returned downstream by bargemen. One to a barge, and enjoying the right of way, they simply guided their barges downriver on the outgoing tide, using “sweeps” to skillfully avoid bridge foundations and all other river traffic. Even today these skills are continued by way of an annual bargeman's race, but on an incoming tide from Greenwich to Tower Bridge.

The sky here, the most important factor in the composition, is somewhat brightened up from what would have been usual. The atmospherics of London (then referred to regularly as “the smoke”) generally obscured vision considerably at distances of over one-half mile. This smoky atmosphere did however, have a plus side: It made London's white Portland stone buildings turn to a magnificent warm pink as they receded into the distance.

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