In the Garden (Rustic Courtship)

1874

Winslow Homer

Associated Names
Winslow Homer

Artist, American, 1836 - 1910

This painting shows two people, one standing in a garden and the other looking out a window. In the middle, one person is standing with their back to us, facing a red-and-white brick building and holding a long-handled tool on their shoulders. They wear a straw hat, a red shirt, blue suspenders, and greyish-blue pants. The other person is above them, leaning out of the buildings through a window. This person is wearing a dark striped dress with a white bonnet or hat over their gray hair. Both people have pale skin. The garden has green grass, potted plants, sunflowers, and a black-and-white cat walking across the grass on the left.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor and gouache over graphite on wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    sheet: 22.23 × 32.39 cm (8 3/4 × 12 3/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2014.18.17

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Goodrich/Gerdts 2005, Vol. II, no. 499

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Daniel A. Matthews Art Gallery, 2-4 Mar. 1880, Homer watercolors sale) [?]; Thomas B. Clarke, New York, [1880?]; (American Art Association, 14-18 Feb. 1899, Clarke sale no.24); Frank Rockefeller, Cleveland, 1899; Alice Rockefeller, Cleveland, his daughter, probably by bequest, 1917; John S. Nash, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 1943; (Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1971); Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; to National Gallery, bequest of Mrs. Paul Mellon to NGA, 2014.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1876

  • The Great Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 10 May-10 Nov. 1876, no 308 [?]

1880

  • Daniel A. Mathews Art Gallery, New York, [auction], 2-4 March 1880

1899

  • Private Art Collection of Thomas B. Clarke [auction], American Art Association, New York, 7-18 Feb. 1899, no. 24

1973

  • Winslow Homer, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 3 April-3 June 1973; no. 80 (as Rustic Courtship, Whitney, only)

1986

  • Winslow Homer Watercolors, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2 March-11 May 1986; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 6 June-27 July 1986; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 11 Sept.-2 Nov. 1986, no. 17 (as Rustic Courtship)

Bibliography

2005

  • Goodrich, Lloyd, and Abigail Booth Gerdts. Record of Works by Winslow Homer, vol. 2. New York: Spanierman Gallery, 2005, pp. 280-281, no. 499.

Inscriptions

in watercolor, lower right: HOMER '74

Wikidata ID

Q64640387

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