A watercolor depicts a close-up view of a fish, a frog, and lily pads inside a pond.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A watercolor depicts a close-up view of a freshwater pond. On the right, a large frog with green, blue, and reddish-brown skin climbs out of the water onto a floating green lily pad. On the left, a small blue fish with a red belly is swimming, his spiky fins breaking the surface of the water as he swims in pursuit of two small white butterflies. On the far left, a white water lily floats on the surface; its reflection can be seen in the dark waters of the pond. The animals are surrounded by aquatic plants in shades of green.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.304
People
Winslow Homer, American (Boston, MA 1836 - 1910 Prouts Neck, ME)
Title
Mink Pond
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1891
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/307976

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Transparent and opaque watercolor and graphite on heavy white wove paper
Dimensions
35.2 × 50.8 cm (13 7/8 × 20 in.)
mat: 55.9 × 69.9 cm (22 × 27 1/2 in.)
frame: 59.7 × 73.7 × 1.6 cm (23 1/2 × 29 × 5/8 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: red gouache, l.r.: Mink Pond 1891/Winslow Homer
  • inscription: verso, top edge, black chalk: F. S. Church 4 in gold mat & 1/2 oak frame
  • inscription: verso, upper right, black chalk: Wed. Eve ---- without / fail
  • inscription: verso, upper right, graphite: [ ] 5/8 # 209 1/2 21 3/4 x 27 3/4 / 13 3/4 x 19 3/4

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Winslow Homer, gift; to his brother Charles S. Homer, Jr., 1892, bequest; to Mrs. Charles S. Homer, Jr., 1917, bequest; to Arthur P. Homer, 1937, bequest; to Mrs. Arthur P. Homer, 1940, sold [via Martin Birnbaum, 1941] [1]; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, 1941, bequest; Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

[1] Birnbaum wrote to Winthrop on October 7, 1941: “There is a great, and unique watercolor by Winslow Homer. This belongs to the family and I am surprised that the Macbeth Gallery has not been approached.”

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.304
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1936), no. 70
  • Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer, MacMillan (New York, NY, 1944), p. 117, pl. 35
  • James Whitney Fosburgh, Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks, exh. cat., Adirondack Museum (Blue Mountain Lake, NY, 1959), p. 25, cat. 73, ill.
  • Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, Winslow Homer, American Artist: His World and His Work, C. N. Potter (New York, NY, 1961), p. 248, ill. p. 231
  • Jean Gould, Winslow Homer: A Portrait, Dodd, Mead and Co. (New York, 1962), p. 239
  • James Thomas Flexner, The World of Winslow Homer, 1836 - 1910, Time-Life Books (New York, NY, 1966), p. 129, ill.
  • Philip C. Beam, Winslow Homer at Prout's Neck, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1966), p. 164,fig. 64
  • Eliza Mason Webster, "Die berühmten Graphiksammlungen der Welt (17): Graphik im Fogg Art Museum Cambridge, USA", Westermanns Montshefte, Georg Westermann Verlag (Braunschweig, Germany, December 1968), vol. 109, no. 12, pp. 74-79, p. 79, ill. p. 77, fig. 3
  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), p. 176, cat. 115, ill. p. 177
  • Mary Sayre Haverstock, "An American Bestiary", Art in America (July 1970 - August 1970), vol. LVIII, no. 4, pp. 38-71, p. 60, ill. p. 61
  • Gottfried Lindemann, Prints and Drawings: A Pictorial History, Praeger (New York, NY, 1970), p. 279, ill. p. 277
  • Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 104, ill.
  • John Wilmerding, Winslow Homer, Praeger Publishers (New York, NY, 1972), p. 199, pl. 35
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., American Master Drawings and Watercolors: A History of Works on Paper from Colonial Times to the Present, Harper & Row (New York, NY, 1976), p. 245, fig. 203
  • Donelson F. Hoopes, American Watercolor Painting, Watson-Guptill Publications (New York, NY, 1977), pp. 61, 104, pl. 8
  • John Wilmerding, "Harvard and American Art", Apollo (June 1978), vol. CVII, no. 196, pp. 490-495, p. 492, pl. XXIII
  • Mary Sayre Haverstock, An American Bestiary, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1979), pp. 111-112, ill. p. 113
  • Gordon Hendricks, The Life and Work of Winslow Homer, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1979), CL-265, p. 297, pl. 45
  • Lee Eisenberg and DeCourcy Taylor, The Ultimate Fishing Book, Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston, MA, 1981), ill. p. 94
  • Jon R. Luoma, "Clouds over Canoe Country", Sciences (January 1984 - February 1984), vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 28-37, ill. p. 30
  • William K. Verner, "Adirondack Park: A Painterly Celebration of the First Wilderness Preserve.", Wilderness (Summer 1985), pp. 22-33, p. 33
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), p. 251, cat. 294, ill.
  • Helen A. Cooper, Winslow Homer Watercolors, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art/Yale University Press (Washington, D.C. and New Haven, CT, 1986), pp. 174, 252, fig. 160
  • David Tatham, "Winslow Homer at the North Woods Club", Winslow Homer: A Symposium. Studies in the History of Art, no. 26, ed. Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., 1990), p. 124, fig. 10
  • Todd Wilkinson, "Winslow Homer: The Essence of Wildlife Art", Wildlife Art News (May-June 1990), pp. 64-71., pp. 64-71, ill. p. 66
  • Kate F. Jennings, Winslow Homer, Crescent Books (New York, NY, 1990), pp. 84-85
  • Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Winslow Homer Watercolors, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1991), pl. 54
  • Sue Welsh Reed and Carol Troyen, Awash in Color: Homer, Sargent, and the Great American Watercolor, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, 1993), p. 116
  • Kate F. Jennings, American Watercolors, Crescent Books (New York, NY, 1995), pp. 60-61
  • David Tatham, Fishing in the North Woods: Winslow Homer, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Universe Publishing (Boston, 1995), ill. p. 45
  • Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. and Franklin Kelly, Winslow Homer, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art/Yale University Press (Washington, D.C.; New Haven, CT and London, England, 1995), pp. 292- 293, fig. 198
  • David Tatham, Winslow Homer in the Adirondacks, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY, 1996), pp. 92, 122, 141, ill. p. 84, ill. p. 15, pl. 17
  • Miles Unger, The Watercolors of Winslow Homer, W. W. Norton & Company (New York, 2001), pp. 19, 193, 220, ill. pp. 168-169
  • Patricia Junker and Sarah Burns, Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler, exh. cat., Amon Carter Museum/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Fort Worth, TX and San Francisco, CA, 2002), p. 116, fig. 56
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), pp. 449-450, cat. 2012, ill.
  • Christopher Riopelle, Harvard's Winthrop Collection: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, exh. cat., National Gallery Company Limited (London, 2003), p. 45, cat. 32, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), pp. 463-464, cat. 202, ill.
  • Lloyd Goodrich and Abigail Booth Gerdts, Record of Works by Winslow Homer, Spanierman Gallery (New York, 2005-2014), vol. 5, p. 95, no. 1464, repr. p. 95
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., "American Watercolors and Pastels, 1875-1950", American Art Review (April 2006), XVIII, no. 2, pp. 88-93, ill. p. 91
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., American Watercolors and Pastels 1875-1950 at the Fogg Art Museum, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2006), checklist
  • Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., Virginia Anderson, and Kimberly Orcutt, ed., American Paintings at Harvard, Volume Two, Paintings, Drawings, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826-1856, Harvard Art Museums and Yale University Press (U.S.) (Cambridge, MA and New Haven, CT, 2008), p. 168-169, cat. 128, ill.
  • Martha Tedeschi and Kristi Dahm, Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press (Chicago, 2008), p. 139, fig. 7
  • Gabrielle Townsend, Winslow Homer: Aquarelles, Bibliothèque de l'Image (Paris, France, 2011), repr. pp. 5 (detail), 82
  • Kathleen A. Foster, American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, 2017), pp. 307, 308, 310, 312, fig. 257
  • Timothy Standring, [Review] "American Watercolors, 1880-1990: Into the Light", The Burlington Magazine (August 2023), 165, pp. 908-911, p. 909, fig. 23
  • Joachim Homann, Margaret Morgan Grasselli, and Miriam Stewart, ed., American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2023), repr. as pl. 9 on p. 78

Exhibition History

  • Sixth Annual Loan Exhibition: American Paintings Never Before Exhibited, New York Athletic Club, New York, 01/01/1892 - 12/31/1892
  • Century Loan Exhibition as a Memorial to Winslow Homer, Prout's Neck Association, Prout's Neck, 07/18/1936 - 08/02/1936
  • Winslow Homer Centenary Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 12/15/1936 - 01/15/1937
  • Watercolors by Winslow Homer, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/09/1944 - 11/01/1944
  • Rivers and Seas: Changing Attitudes toward Landscape, 1700-1962, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 04/26/1962 - 07/16/1962
  • Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 01/23/1969 - 03/31/1969
  • American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972
  • Apollo's Laurels, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/31/1978 - 10/04/1978
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • American Watercolors and Pastels, 1875-1950, at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/08/2006 - 06/25/2006
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 03/07/2017 - 07/11/2017
  • Winslow Homer: Eyewitness, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/31/2019 - 01/05/2020
  • American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 05/20/2023 - 08/13/2023

Subjects and Contexts

  • Collection Highlights
  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu