The painting was discussed as part of the 1878 libel suit that Whistler brought against the art critic John Ruskin.

In 1905, Nocturne: Blue and Gold became the first significant acquisition by the newly formed National Art Collections Fund and was presented to the Tate Gallery.

[3]: 121  The Tate Gallery also has one of Whistler's palettes whose remnants show that he mixed his main tones in a continuous gradation.

[5]: 692 Although Whistler grew up middle class, he often spent evenings with London dock workers, the poorest of laborers, as a means of expressing his integrity and artistic freedom.

[6]: 66  Gustave Doré, a French engraver, often etched scenes similar to what Whistler would have encountered around the London docks.

In attempting to paint aesthetic, picturesque images, Whistler often overlooked the daily struggles lived by the lower class.

[7]: 73  A musical nocturne is a single movement piano solo that was meant to invoke the mood of night; Whistler traveled in such circles where he would have been familiar with these pieces.

Oscar Wilde also wrote a poem that was published in 1881, the year he met Whistler, describing the same scene shown in the Nocturne, linking the various modes of art making.

[9] In a series of questions by Judge Baron Huddleston, Whistler admitted he painted the scene between two days and that its content depended on whoever was looking at it.