Mrs. Otcheson at the Piano, and The Buds (from "The Mistress of the Parsonage," in "Harper's Weekly")
Original title: Mrs. Otcheson at the Piano, and The Buds (from "The Mistress of the Parsonage," in "Harper's Weekly")
kurzbeschreibung
Winslow Homer made this wood engraving in 1860 for Harper's Weekly, showing a woman at the piano with a standing man beside her, while two other figures sit in an adjoining room. It belongs to a series of illustrations he produced for the magazine.
Description
At the front a woman sits at the keyboard, her eyes on a sheet of music, as the man at her side leans toward her. An opening in the wall reveals a second room, where two seated figures are talking. Layout and arrangement feel balanced, with the pianist as the still point. Light falling from the front separates figures and furniture clearly from the ground.
Context
Homer drew this sheet in 1860, during a period when he worked as a freelance illustrator for Harper's Weekly, then one of the most important illustrated periodicals. It was published with the story 'The Mistress of the Parsonage' in the issue of March 3, 1860. Only later would he turn entirely to painting.
Impact
The clear structure and the light coming from the front give the print a calm, ordered mood of the kind common in Victorian interior scenes. The surface of the wood engraving yields a dense, finely articulated texture in which figures and furnishings are precisely defined.
Technique
For a wood engraving the design is cut into a woodblock with a burin and then printed; the many thin lines and the characteristic grain of the print come from this process. The image measures 11.1 x 8.9 cm, while the sheet, at 40.6 x 28.5 cm, is considerably larger.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)