London Night, Whiskey and Tea

The American printmaker Joseph Pennell first attempted mezzotint earlier in 1909, with an atmospheric nighttime view of London similar to the one seen in his London Night, Whiskey and Tea. In reference to the Baroque English architect Christopher Wren’s London skyline, Pennell wrote, “And I am not ashamed of it—to try to render as well as I could Wren’s realized dream, so I scraped and scraped and scraped my drawing from dark to light, and I have done what I could.” Pennell burnished these nocturnal reflections on the Thames in the mode of James McNeill Whistler, a close family friend. A later owner enhanced this similarity by matting around the signature, an homage to the tabs Whistler left on his later etchings.