Artwork
A Basket of Clams
A Basket of Clams is a watercolor work on paper by the American Impressionist artist Winslow Homer. It dates from 1873 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Accession no.
- 1995.378
- Credit line
- Gift of Arthur G. Altschul, 1995
About this work
The loose, quick strokes make the scene feel alive, like a snapshot, not a posed portrait.
A boy in a red cap crouches on a beach, holding a basket of clams. His bare feet sink into wet sand. A small sailboat drifts in the background.
Homer painted this in watercolor, which was still new for serious art in 1873. The loose, quick strokes make the scene feel alive, like a snapshot, not a posed portrait. The boy’s face is barely there, but his posture tells you everything.
If you like this, look up more works in the subject boys.
Subject & Meaning
The watercolor shows two boys on a Gloucester, Massachusetts beach carrying a basket of clams. The younger child gazes at a dead shark lying in the sand, while the older boy looks toward a distant ship. This juxtaposition of the innocent act of gathering shellfish with the signs of mortality, the shark, and the wider world represented by the vessel introduces a subtle undercurrent of melancholy.
Scholars interpret these elements as hinting at a darker atmosphere beneath the scene’s apparent simplicity, suggesting themes of innocence confronted by death and the lure of the unknown beyond the shore.
Technique & Style
Executed in 1873 on wove paper, the work is a transparent watercolor heightened with touches of opaque bodycolor, a technique that allows luminous passages of light to pass through the pigment while retaining crisp highlights on the clamshells and basket weave. The composition is organized through bold, simplified shapes, flat expanses of sand and sea contrasted with the cylindrical volume of the basket and the attenuated figures of two boys, typical of Homer’s early Gloucester watercolors. Handling is rapid yet controlled, with wet-into-wet washes for the sky and sea grading into dry brush for the crisply drawn basket and clams.
The artist’s graphic background in wood-engraving informs the economical contouring of the figures and the shark’s sinuous form.
History & Provenance
Winslow Homer executed the watercolor A Basket of Clams in 1873 during a period of work in Gloucester, Massachusetts. This piece represents the artist's earliest watercolor held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The museum acquired the work in 1995 through a gift from Arthur G. Altschul.
While specific details regarding an original commission are not recorded in the available texts, the painting's creation is firmly situated within Homer's mid-19th century output, specifically reflecting his transition from illustration to vigorous watercolor landscapes.
A Basket of Clams has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is the earliest watercolor by Winslow Homer held by the museum, having entered the collection in 1995 as a gift from Arthur G. Altschul. The work is classified within the museum's American Wing.
No exhibition history beyond its accession into the Metropolitan Museum's holdings is documented in the available sources.
Context
A Basket of Clams (1873) is a watercolor on paper measuring 29.2 × 24.8 cm, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and entered the collection as a gift from Arthur G. Altschul in 1995.
It belongs to a small group of watercolors Homer executed in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a period that scholars link to his early illustrative work and to his growing interest in everyday coastal life.
Critics have highlighted its dynamic composition and the subtle tension created by the dead shark and distant ship, interpreting these details as hints of a darker mood within the otherwise lively beach scene.
Overview
Winslow Homer's A Basket of Clams, painted in 1873, is an early watercolor depicting a young boy on a beach. This work, rendered with a fresh and immediate quality, holds significance as the earliest watercolor by the artist within the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. It offers a glimpse into Homer's developing engagement with the medium and his focus on everyday American life.
Artist & collection
Artist
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects.
- Salt Marsh Landscape with Two Children near a Beached Sailboat and Dory
The Blue Ship, Venice
Coast scene
Dad's Coming!
Spearing Eels
Beached fishing boat with seated fisherman
Blankenberge No.3
Breakwater at Trouville, Low Tide
Fishing boat on the shore at Hastings
Young Anglers
The Sands at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight
French coast, with fishing boats