Tower Bridge was designed by the Corporation’s architect Sir Horace Jones and opened by the Prince of Wales on 30 June 1894. The event was recorded for the next issue of The Graphic magazine by Wyllie, one of its regular artists. John Woolf-Barry, the bridge’s engineer and a friend of the Wyllie family, secured seats for Mrs Wyllie and her sister close to the royal dais. The artist himself sailed on board HMS Landrail, one of the first ships to be given the privilege of passing through the bridge. When Wyllie exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1895 the Art Journal’s reviewer wrote: ‘The day was glorious, the sun hot enough to raise a tremulous golden haze over river and land, the breeze brisk enough to keep colour sparkling and the landscape clear. Mr Wyllie found here all that his heart could desire – the close-packed flotilla of shipping, the race of the mighty river tide, the avenue of unpaintably brilliant and varied flaunting bunting, which led up to the mighty bridge standing white midstream in the westering sunlight, and the great fleet of craft of all sizes and rigs, headed by the Admiralty yacht Irene, passing under its vast uplifted arms. Here was a subject for an historical painter, and in that sense he has conceived and executed it.’