Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Guides Carrying a Canoe
Winslow Homer American
Not on view
This watercolor dates from Homer’s last fishing trip to the rugged and remote landscape around Canada’s Saguenay River, which the artist had been visiting with his brother Charles for nearly ten years. Seemingly more peaceful in its focus than Homer’s other Quebec watercolors, the quiet scene depicts two guides transporting an empty canoe in the foreground—the one at right fragmented and nearly subsumed by the landscape—alongside three sketchily defined figures in a canoe near the shore.
Homer had long admired the nature guides and made them the subjects of paintings throughout his career. Late in his life, they became more critical as they allowed the aging artist and his brother to continue making their excursions.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
