James Whistler was a regular visitor to Liverpool as Laura Davis finds out through a new exhibition of his work

POCKETS are often full of the most wonderful treasures – screwed up theatre tickets, marbles dented from the rages of battle, tangled-up pieces of string and maybe even a boiled sweet or two.

The items tucked inside James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s pockets did not have the ruddy glow of a thrice victorious, vinegar-soaked conker, but they were special just the same.

For with these raw materials he created the etchings that will form the basis of a new exhibition at the Lady Lever.

"It was pretty economic. When you’re making an etching you’re drawing on to a copper plate which might be just A5 size or less and so you can have those in your pocket with your etching needles," explains Pamela Robertson, senior curator of Glasgow’s Hunterian Art Gallery, which is lending the works to the Port Sunlight gallery.

"There’s a group in the exhibition that was done at a naval review mounted on the Thames to mark Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee and Whistler was out on one of the boats.

"This series of prints showing the troop ships and the monitor ships was done there and then on the spot."

The spontaneous nature of scratching an image on to a copper plate boldly contrasts with the complicated and precise nature of the work back at his studio.

The plates had to be dipped in acid and inked up before they could be put through the printing press.

A perfectionist, Whistler would often rework the plates – refining them and changing elements.