The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)

The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)

Winslow Homer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In one of his most striking compositions, Homer describes a Union rifleman perched on a tree limb, drawing a bead on a Confederate mark across the lines. The expertly balanced rifle and glinting eye indicate a marksman’s skill even as his precarious pose suggests that the soldier could himself easily become a casualty of war. At this point in his career, Homer had begun to focus on painting oils, and this wood engraving relates to a canvas now at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. When the engraving appeared in Harper’s Weekly in November 1862, the painting was not yet finished, so the print acted as a form of advance publicity and is today as well known as the oil.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)The Army of the Potomac – A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. VII)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.