A Basket of Clams

Winslow Homer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At Gloucester, Homer produced a series of watercolors focusing on the daily activities of local children, whether boating, helping with chores, or playing among the dunes and wharves. In A Basket of Clams, one of the earliest watercolors by the artist in The Met collection, Homer depicts two boys lugging their haul across the beach. The smaller figure appears to eye the dead shark ahead, while his older companion looks back, seemingly at the sailboat behind them. These two details—the shark and the ship—cast a shadow on an otherwise bright scene, subtly gesturing to threats the youth of this fishing village might someday face at sea.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art