Seesaw, Gloucester, Massachusetts (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. XVIII)
September 12, 1874
Medium
Wood engraving
Dimensions
image: 9 1/8 x 13 3/4 in. (23.2 x 34.9 cm) sheet: 10 13/16 x 15 15/16 in. (27.5 x 40.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928
Accession Number
28.111.6(9)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Winslow Homer's *Seesaw, Gloucester Massachusetts*, published in *Harper's Weekly* on September 12, 1874, captures a joyful moment of childhood play in a coastal New England town. This wood engraving depicts boys gleefully balancing on a seesaw amid quaint houses, with women nearby, evoking the simple pleasures of 19th-century American life. Rendered in intricate black-and-white lines, the 9 1/8 x 13 3/4-inch image (sheet: 10 13/16 x 15 15/16 inches) draws viewers into Gloucester's everyday scene, a hub for fishing and summer visitors. As a master of American Realism, Homer frequently contrib...
About the Artist
Winslow Homer|Harper's Weekly|Harper & Brothers · 1836–1910
Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was one of America's greatest painters and a preeminent figure in 19th-century American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career as a commercial illustrator and Civil War correspondent for Harper's Weekly before becoming renowned for his powerful marine subjects and landscape paintings. His mastery of both oil and watercolor, combined with his uncompromising reali...