1882

Drawing the Seine

American, 1844 - 1916

Eakins projected his photograph of fishermen operating the capstan that hauled in their net and traced in faint pencil the outlines of the men, the patches of light on their slickers, the timbers of the retaining wall, and the foam of breaking waves. After he had brushed in his pigments, the artist atypically did not erase the underdrawing, perhaps because he exhibited this watercolor only twice before presenting it as a gift to the Philadelphia art collector John G. Johnson.