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We look across a coral-pink beach that curves around a royal-blue bay, under a glimmering, pale blue sky in this horizontal watercolor landscape. The area of the beach closest to us is cast under a pale, plum-purple shadow. The beach curves away from us and to the right, like a backward C. At the curve, a short distance from us, a bank of emerald-green vegetation and a scrubby, dark green tree leads back to a low, grassy hill. A pair of two-story buildings with oyster-white walls and bright white roofs perch on the spit of land opposite us, across the water. Pale pink boats are pulled up onto the beach in front of and to our left of the buildings. The buildings and the green hill reflect in the water, which laps against the sand closest to us with bands of azure blue. More loosely painted buildings line the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Two brick-red smudges to our left could be people standing at the water’s edge in the distance. The sky above has puffy white clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The artist signed the painting in the lower left, “HOMER.” In the lower right, the location and date are written in dark gray, “Salt Kettle Dec 1899.”

Winslow Homer

Salt Kettle, Bermuda, 1899

Not on View

Medium

watercolor over graphite on wove paper

Dimensions

sheet: 35.4 × 53.3 cm (13 15/16 × 21 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel

Catalogue Raisonné

Goodrich/Gerdts 2014, Vol. V, no. 1688

Accession Number

1975.92.15

Artists / Makers

Winslow Homer (artist) American, 1836 - 1910

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower left in graphite: HOMER; lower right in black watercolor: Salt Kettle / Dec 1899; upper center verso in black crayon by unknown hand: No. 14; lower center verso in graphite: Bermuda Salt Kettle

Provenance

Charles S. Homer, Jr., possibly by gift of Homer, nd. or by bequest, 1910; Mrs. Charles S. Homer, Jr., by bequest, 1917; Chales L. Homer, by bequest, 1937; (William Macbeth, Inc., New York, 1938); Charles R. Henschel, New York, 1938; Ruth K. Henschel (Mrs. Charles R. Henschel), New York, 1956; gift to NGA, 1975

Associated Names

Henschel, Charles R., Mrs.

Exhibition History

1901: Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1 May-1 Nov. 1901[?]

1911: Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Winslow Homer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 6 Feb.-19 March 1911, no. 35

1915: Water Colors by Winslow Homer, The Museum of the Brooklyn Institute, 16 Oct.-7 Nov. 1915; The Century Association, New York, 9 Dec. 1915-14 Jan. 1916, no. 12 (as Bermuda Sketch)

1923: Exposition d'Art Américaine: John S. Sargent, R.A. Dodge MacKnight, Winslow Homer, Paul Manship, Association Franco-Américaine d'Expositions de Painture et de Sculpture, Paris, 18 May-25 June 1923, no. 27

1923: Winslow Homer, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 9 Sept.-26 Oct. 1923, no. 25

1936: Homer, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 2 May-8 June 1936, no. 49

1936: Winslow Homer 1836-1910: Loan Exhibtion of Watercolors Commemorating the Centenary of his Birth, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 20 Jan.-8 Feb. 1936, no. 25

1937: Century Exhibition of Works of Winslow Homer, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 28 Jan.-7 Mar. 1937, no. 84

1941: Watercolors and Drawings by Winslow Homer, Institute of Modern Art, Boston, 21 June-15 July 1941, no. wc-14

1962: Watercolors by Winslow Homer from the Collection of Mrs. Charles R. Henschel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 6 July-12 Sept. 1962, no. 14

1966: Watercolors by Winslow Homer, 1837-1910, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 7 July-28 Aug. 1966, no. 41

1986: Winslow Homer Watercolors, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 1986, no. 205

1995: Winslow Homer, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1995-1996, 350-351, no. 217.

2005: Winslow Homer in the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2005-2006, unnumbered brochure.

Bibliography

1986: Cooper 1986, fig.205.

1995: Winslow Homer. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1995-1996: no. 217.

2001: Unger, Miles. The Watercolors of Winslow Homer. New York, 2001: 182-183.

2008: Tedeschi, Martha with Kristi Dahm. Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light, Art Institute of Chicago, 2008: 158, fig. 24.

2014: Goodrich, Lloyd and Abigail Booth Gerdts. Record of Works by Winslow Homer. New York, 2014: V, no. 1688, p. 292.