Battersea Reach (La Tamise à Battersea)

Seymour Haden was the unlikely combination of a surgeon and an etcher. Although he pursued a very successful medical career, he is mostly remembered for his etched work as well as for his writings on etching. He was one of a group of artists, including James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), whose passionate interest in the medium led to the so-called etching revival, a period that lasted well into the twentieth century. The extolling of etching for its inherent spontaneous qualities reached its pinnacle during this time. While the line of the etching needle, Haden wrote, was "free, expressive, full of vivacity," that of the burin was "cold, constrained, uninteresting," and "without identity."
View of the Thames at Battersea with Battersea Railway Bridge in the distance; cat in foreground on wall at center; church steeple at center in background.
"Published States: Second.-The wherries in midstream, the sign-board in front, and the oars, are removed; the sky and water are also cleared, and a balloon rises above the railway-bridge. In right upper corner 'Battersea Reach, Seymour Haden,' in place of the former inscription. A few early impressions of this state have a monkey instead of a cat on the quay wall; others have two monkeys, others again, a monkey and a cat, and in the latest the cat is removed. There are also many minor variations in the sky, the water, and the quay wall. One impression in the author's collection has 'à Burty' in dry-point on the parapet to the right. Published in Études à l'eau-forte (No.11). This plate broke across in the printing, and this in part accounts for the fact that the full number of copies of Études was not issued. Exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1864."
[Source: Harrington, p. 27]
"State VII (D2,H2). Published in Études à l'eau-forte (No. II). The man at center foreground now wears what appears to be a turban with a feather, and a black cat stands on the quay wall at his left."
[Schneiderman, p. 137]