Liverpool Quay by Moonlight

British artist John Atkinson Grimshaw painted this nocturne in 1887, depicting Liverpool's waterfront on a foggy evening. An omnibus with a green rear light has stopped on damp cobblestones to pick up a woman. Shop windows glow golden through the mist, their light reflecting on wet pavement in a characteristic effect Grimshaw repeated across many works.

The omnibus receding down a perfectly straight street creates depth. Grimshaw specialized in such urban nocturnes, capturing the Romantic atmosphere of moonlit industrial cities. His friend James McNeill Whistler said, "I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlight picture." Grimshaw concentrated on the interplay of artificial and natural light, fog and reflection. The work measures 61 x 91.4 cm, oil on canvas, and was purchased by Tate Britain in 1967.