The River Thames moves diagonally through this composition, leading the viewer’s eye to distant warehouses and a church in Lambeth on the south bank. Meanwhile, the figures, barge, and mooring post in the foreground draw attention to the riverbank. Millbank was originally intended as an invitation card for James McNeill Whistler’s first print exhibition in 1861 and was later published in the artist’s popular series of etchings known as the Thames Set (“A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames and Other Subjects”) in 1871. Over this decade, the Thames Embankment project dramatically changed the Millbank area by draining marshlands and building retaining walls along the river.