Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000301Boy with Anchor
About the Artwork
In this work from a series of watercolors produced in Gloucester, MA, in the summer of 1873 Winslow Homer evokes the fraught nature of the local fishing industry by focusing not on the perilous work of adults, but rather the children they leave behind. In Boy with Anchor, the massive anchor pointing toward the sea foreshadows the weight of the boy’s maritime destiny. The work is an early example of Homer's talent for evoking atmospheric effects and his interest in technical variety. Presumably working outdoors, Homer layered fluent washes of blue, gray, and brown transparent watercolor over his graphite underdrawing to flesh out the beach and sky. He built up the hot, pebble-studded surface of the beach by using dense gouache to draw textural detail and created the broken cloud pattern in the sky by lightly blotting his wet blue wash. The picture’s formal tensions between warm and cool colors, outline and wash, and transparency and opacity mirror the emotional tension of the scene.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in black watercolor: homer 1873; signed, lower right, in black watercolor: homer 18[illegible, partially painted out]
Provenance
?-?: John M. Hay [1838-1910], former Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. ?-1954: Mrs. C. E. Meder (a household employee of John M. Hay), Kirtland, OH, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art. 1954-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
Exhibition history
Water Color. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 6-August 27, 1962). Winslow Homer: Portrait of America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 10, 1965-May 16, 1966). Eight American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice B. Prendergast, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, Charles Demuth, Charles E. Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (April 23-June 16, 1968); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (June 28-August 18, 1968); Seattle Art Museum (September 5-October 13, 1968). Winslow Homer. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (October 15, 1995-January 28, 1996); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (February 21-May 26, 1996). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (February 16-May 11, 2008). Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014). Spectacular Freedom: Andrew Wyeth and the Modern American Watercolor. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 20, 2026-January 18, 2027).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
- Date
- 1873
- Medium
- Watercolor and graphite on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 19.4 x 34.9 cm (7 5/8 x 13 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund
- Accession no.
- 1954.128
More by Winslow Homer in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000301
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