Winslow Homer
The Cellist
1866-1868
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Framed: 28 3/4 × 22 5/8 × 3 in. (73 × 57.5 × 7.6 cm.)
Unframed: 18 7/8 × 12 3/4 in. (47.9 × 32.4 cm.)
Credit Line
Given in Memory of Joseph Katz by his Children
Object Number
1964.52.2
Winslow Homer made his first trip abroad when two of his Civil War paintings were selected for the American section of the 1867 Universal Exhibition in Paris. While there he stayed in a Montmartre studio and did some painting. The Studio (Metropolitan Museum of Art) depicts a violinist and a cellist playing together in front of a drapery. A virtually identical cellist appears in the BMA’s canvas, but he plays alone. Homer often recycled pictorial elements in his paintings and prints. The double date on the BMA canvas suggests that he completed it in New York, leaving out the violinist and draperies of the Met picture and adding gothic windows to the background. Perhaps they were drawn from the old New York University Building on Washington Square where Homer lived from 1861 to 1872.
The artist; to Charles DeKay, New York; to his daughter, Mrs. John Wheelock, ca. 1883; M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1939; Kleeman Galleries, New York, by 1942; Joseph Katz, Baltimore, 1944; Victor Spark, New York, ca. 1960
NAD, New York, 1868, no. 420 (probably the painting listed as The Studio and for sale)
Detroit Institute of Arts, The Age of Impressionism and Objective Realism, May 3-June 2, 1940, no. 63 (as Cello Player, 1867, lent by M. Knoedler and Company, New York), for checklist see Art News, May 4, 1940
Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Music in Art, Aug. 11-Sept. 6, 1942, no. 36 (lent by Kleeman Galleries, New York)
The University of Arizona Art Gallery, Tucson, Yankee Painter, A Retrospective Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Graphics by Winslow Homer, Oct. 11-Dec. 1, 1963, p. 89, no. 126, ill. p. 44 (lent by Victor Spark)
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "The Art of Music from the Baltimore Museum of Art," circulated to Mansion at Strathmore, North Bethesda, Maryland, January 8, 2005 - February 26, 2005
The Washington Country Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, September 30, 2005 - November 20, 2005
The Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, December 9, 2005 - February 5, 2006; Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Gallery, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, February 15, 2006 - April 9, 2006
Detroit Institute of Arts, The Age of Impressionism and Objective Realism, May 3-June 2, 1940, no. 63 (as Cello Player, 1867, lent by M. Knoedler and Company, New York), for checklist see Art News, May 4, 1940
Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Music in Art, Aug. 11-Sept. 6, 1942, no. 36 (lent by Kleeman Galleries, New York)
The University of Arizona Art Gallery, Tucson, Yankee Painter, A Retrospective Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Graphics by Winslow Homer, Oct. 11-Dec. 1, 1963, p. 89, no. 126, ill. p. 44 (lent by Victor Spark)
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "The Art of Music from the Baltimore Museum of Art," circulated to Mansion at Strathmore, North Bethesda, Maryland, January 8, 2005 - February 26, 2005
The Washington Country Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, Maryland, September 30, 2005 - November 20, 2005
The Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, December 9, 2005 - February 5, 2006; Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Gallery, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, February 15, 2006 - April 9, 2006
Sona K. Johnston, "American Painting 1750-1900 from the Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art," 1983, pp. 82-83, ill. p. 82
Inscribed: lower right: Paris-69/Winslow Homer
