1873
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Biglin Brothers Turning the Stake is a 1873 unspecified by Thomas Eakins, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
Two men in a narrow rowboat lean hard left near a wooden stake. The river is choppy, their muscles strain. Behind them, other boats drift, spectators jam the shore. Eakins painted this from life. He watched the 1872 race on the Schuylkill River himself. Details like the brothers’ sweat feel real. The riverbank crowds show his skill at painting motion. Look up Thomas Eakins (American, 1844–1916).
Eakins's painting celebrates athletic teamwork while commemorating an actual event, a famous rowing race that took place on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia during May 1872. Throngs of spectators line the riverbank and watch as Barney and John Biglin negotiate the tricky turn around a stake marking the halfway point in the contest. Their competitors, seen in the middle distance at the right, lag behind. The Biglin brothers won the race, cementing their status as the most celebrated oarsmen of the era. Trained in the United States and France, Eakins spent almost his entire artistic career…
Rowing was among the most popular spectator sports in the U.S. during the 1870s.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator.
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