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Walter Dowdeswell, the publisher of Whistler's Venetian etchings, arranged in 1885 for Whistler's introduction to the transplanted French artist Théodore Roussel, whose little paintings of Chelsea Whistler admired.

"It is undeniable, and indeed obvious, that the inspiration of Roussel's early etchings is derived from Whistler. The fact is proclaimed by the choice of subjects, such as little Chelsea shops and streets, and boats and barges on the London Thames, by the preference for small plates, by the adoption of Whistler's practice of cutting away all margins except a little oblong tab reserved for the etcher's autograph signature, and above all by the exquisite printing."
-Campbell Dodgson