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© The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery

The streets and waterways of Venice and London, sit next to Liverpool's Speke Hall in a new exhibition of etchings by American artist James McNeill Whistler.

The exhibition, at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight from 3 July, 2009, showcases 34 etchings from across Whistler’s career plus several objects that belonged to the artist.

Whistler is best known as a painter, but his original reputation came from his skills as an etcher.

The display includes an etching Whistler made of Speke Hall when he was commissioned by the owner shipping magnate Frederick Leyland to make 20 works of the house.

Jane Duffy at the Whistler exhibition

A drawing dating from 1870 shows Frederick Leyland’s wife standing in the driveway of Speke Hall.

Jane Duffy, head of the Lady Lever Art Gallery says the etchings were important to how Whistler built his reputation, “People are probably more familiar with his paintings.

"So what’s nice about this exhibition is you see a different aspect of his work, actually working small scale.

"He is testing ideas and there are some nocturnal images in the exhibition.

"So you can actually see that relationship with his perhaps more familiar paintings.

"When he started out Whistler was actually employed doing maps, etching maps for publication for a geological survey of an island.

"That’s really how he started and the exhibition covers a huge time span in his career right from the 1850’s all the way through to the 1890’s, right from his early beginnings through to later in his career when he was a very established artist.

Mrs Leyland at Speke Hall

Whistler visited Liverpool on several occasions mainly visiting Speke Hall, "The scenes are of Speke Hall itself," Jane Duffy says.

"There are scenes showing Leyland's wife and children in the grounds of Speke Hall.

"It lends itself really well to etching because of the design of the house and the black and white contrast of the building."

The exhibition gives an insight in to how Whistler would piece together ideas in his head, "They show the etchings at different stages in their development," explains Jane Duffy

"So you’ll see a figure in one etching and you will see its been removed from another etching, so its kind of the whole process that you can see in them.

"There are some great detailed images of doorways along with wider scenes of Venice and the London docklands."

Whistler - The Gentle Art of Making Etchings is at the Lady Lever Art Gallery from 3 July to 20 September, 2009.