The Thames in Ice - James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1860)

James Abbott McNeill

Oil on canvas

Freer Gallery of Art

The Thames in Ice is an oil painting completed by James Abbott McNeill Whistler around Christmas 1860, depicting the River Thames frozen during a bitterly cold winter when the river remained iced over for more than fourteen weeks. Originally titled 'The Twenty-fifth of December 1860. On the Thames,' the work was painted from an inn overlooking the river and renders the scene with bold brushstrokes, a somber palette, and a thinly painted surface that conveys the stark, wintry atmosphere of London's working waterfront. Whistler, an American-born artist who settled in London in 1859 and found the Thames a constant source of inspiration, was at this stage in his career working under the influence of French Realism while beginning to develop the tonal sensibilities that would define his later Nocturnes. Although rooted in a realist impulse to document working life along the river, the misty, gray atmosphere of this painting already hints at the aesthetic poetry that would come to characterize his mature work.