The drawing of the shadows beneath the central balcony, the laundry hanging from a washing line at the top of the picture and the window convey the projection of these features from the flat surface of the building. The glass panes in the windows are merely suggested and the dark reflection in the canal provides balance and contrast to the architecture above. Whistler has used the repetition of parallel lines, verticals and horizontals, to organize the space. Comparison with his approach to a similar subject a decade earlier, The Balcony, published in the Second Venice Set, shows an artist who is now confident that he can dispense with architectural detail and context and move in closer on his subject. The etching was done on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal, then known as the Rottenest. It shows the back of Zeedijk no.48. The Balcony, Amsterdam is perhaps the most common of the Amsterdam series and it is likely that Whistler printed about twelve proofs. Rosalind Birnie Philip, Whistler’s sister-in-law, had Nathaniel Sparks print and annotate a few posthumous impressions: the plate was then cancelled and is now in the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow.