Plate-girder railway bridges

Pimlico was barely a mile east of Whistler's studio on Tite Street, in Chelsea, an area quite familiar to Sickert. Battersea Bridge, which traverses the Thames from Chelsea on the north bank to Battersea on the south, was a few blocks from Whistler's studio and approximately a mile from where the arm was found. In 1884, Sickert painted Battersea Park, which was visible from Whistler's studio window. In 1888, Pimlico was a quaint area of neat homes and small gardens where the sewage system was raised lest it overflow into the Thames. It was laborer Frederick Moore's sorry luck to be working outside the gates of Deal Wharf, near the railway bridge, when he heard excited voices on the shore of the Thames. The tide was low, and several men were talking loudly as they stared at an object in the mud. Since no one seemed inclined to pick up whatever it was, Moore did. The police carried the arm to Sloane Street, where a Dr. Neville examined it and determined it was the right arm of a female. He suggested that the string tied around it was "in order for it to be carried." He said the arm had been in the water two or three days and was amputated after death ...»