First exhibited as "Preparing for the Carnival" in Boston in 1878, this painting was retitled when Homer put it up for sale at the Kurtz Gallery in New York in 1879. It was subsequently also called "The Carnival." It presumably was based upon sketches that Homer made in 1875 when he returned to Petersburg, Virginia. There, he made studies among the African Americans that served as a basis for a group of pictures painted over the next two years.

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