Neptune's Needle

Artist and teacher.

Eakins painted several outdoor sporting pictures of favorite activities, including rowing on the Schuylkill River, sailing on the Delaware, and hunting reed birds in the South Philadelphia or New Jersey marshes. Eakins's images of athletes and sportsmen always appear to be founded on conviction and thorough study. For example, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (1871, Metropolitan Museum of Art) is both a portrait of one of Eakins's high school classmates and a charming slice-of-life image of a champion sculler resting on his oars after a vigorous practice session. The painting also includes a self-portrait of the artist, equally absorbed in his rowing in the middle ground.

Sources

Images

Public Domain Source

Compiler

Peter Richards