Cleveland Museum of Art

Shepherdess

Winslow Homer

Date

c. 1878

Medium

charcoal with brush and brown wash, heightened with white chalk; framing lines in graphite

Culture

America

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Homer spent the summer of 1878 at Mountainsville, New York, where his brother's business partner, Lawson Valentine, had a country place called Houghton Farm. While there he developed pastoral images of shepherdesses. The flirtatious quality of these depictions becomes intriguing when we consider that Homer never married, and that he worked not only from female models but also sometimes from boys in girls' clothing.

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