Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860–1877

Thomas Eakins (American, 1844–1916)
The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), 1871
Oil on canvas; 32 1/4 x 46 1/4 in. (81.9 x 117.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Fund and George D. Pratt Gift, 1934 (34.92)
Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here, in the first in a series of rowing scenes that he painted in the early 1870s, Eakins depicted his lifelong friend Max Schmitt, now an attorney and champion rower who had won an important race on Philadelphia's Schuylkill River in October 1870. As a sport, rowing was valued for its engagement of mind and body, for the discipline it required, and as a healthful antidote to increasing urban pressures, but it had been portrayed only in prints and illustrations in periodicals. Applying his characteristic narrative restraint to an unprecedented subject for painting, Eakins shows Schmitt pausing during a late-afternoon practice session while he himself rows a scull in the middle distance. Shaping his subtle story from detailed studies of individual elements, Eakins conjures both a particular moment and an iconic modern hero.