1869 print - CROQUET, by WINSLOW HOMER - Summer in the Country with young ladies

Description: wood engraving by WINSLOW HOMER Summer in the Country 1869 ------ This is a single wood engraved sheet from the July 10, 1869, issue of Appletons Journal which was published over 150 years ago. It measures 8 x 11 inches in size, and is in fine and very attractive condition. In his career as an illustrator, Winslow Homer often drew people in outdoor recreational scenes, and this is an attractive example of that artistry. This engraving measures 6.5 x 4.5 inches on the overall sheet. Titled, Summer in the Country, it portrays four young ladies in fancy dress playing a game of croquet. Below the print is a descriptive article about the scene. This text is 66 lines long, saying in part: What should we do without our vacations? How could we endure the monotony of professional labors, or of city occupations, if the summer-months every year did not seduce us into the fields and the mountains, to the lakes or the sea-shore, where we can make a holiday, and row, and sail, and walk, and angle, and picnic, and croquet, to our delicious hearts content? Our sports are mainly only excuses to enjoy out-of-doors. Croquet, for instance, excites us in a mild satisfaction, no doubt, but, we derive our greatest pleasure from the out-of-door conditions that pertain to it. The sunshine and the grass, and the flowers and the soft, refreshing airs, and the peaceful quiet, all possess and fill us with Arcadian content, and it is these that render croquet, and all forms of out-door employment, so much appreciated. It has, indeed, been wickedly intimated that the real popularity of croquet is derived from another cause. There is more or less flirtation connected with the game, it is believed, and the admirable opportunities it offers for little coquettish comedies are supposed to have largely to do with the favor the sport enjoys. Acquaintance ripens readily under its auspices; there are the side-whispers, the banterings, the numberless coquetries, the rivalry on the one hand, and the copartnership on the other, the merry-making that youth and good spirits call up; and hence young men and women find the sport highly conducive to that keener and subtler game that youth and beauty are always eager to play. But MR. WINSLOW HOMER, in his sketch, has drawn only women players. It is pure liking for the game, or love of out-of-doors, that has brought these ladies into the field. No deeper purpose is suggested. Croquet is entitled to our earnest benediction in this, that it has been, and is, the means of tempting young women into the air and sun. We may guard our fair ones so tenderly that the winds of heaven shall not visit their cheeks too roughly; but we will like them all the better if the sun kiss their cheeks into ruddiness and glow, even if a little tan, or a freckle or two, prove the compensating price. It is delightful to know how the charms of out-of-doors increase in favor of women. . . . All forms of sports and pastimes that carry us out upon the turf, that permit us to fill ourselves with draughts of pure air, that give us physical exertion, are supremely good. There are better things for these purposes than croquet, even for young women. Croquet is a sort of compromise with the refinements of civilization. It permits us to be elegant and fastidious. . . . But there is no doubt that croquet has, during the last few years, done more than any thing else to promote with young ladies a liking for open-air games, and this is a service in the cause of health and beauty that deserves our unreserved approbation. Though Homer's artwork in Appleton's is rarer and much less well-known than the Gloucester scenes, etc., which he drew for Harper's Weekly, the drawing here nonetheless displays the distinctive style for which he became famous as an illustrator, and is a very nice example of his artistry at a time in his career before later achieving even greater fame as a painter of American life. ********************************************* Background on this publication: Appletons Journal was an illustrated weekly paper published in New York. Its parent company was D. Appleton & Co., Publishers, which at the time was one of Americas leading book publishers. The paper was founded in 1869, and achieved a widespread, but shortlived national popularity during the next six years. It carried some serial fiction, but most of its content was devoted to essays on Americana subjects, plus the arts and sciences. Following several changes in editors, however, it began suffering a decline in circulation. It subsequently switched to monthly publication after 1876, and went out of business in 1881. [gsp12142] _gsrx_vers_1680 (GS 9.8.3 (1680))

Price: 26.95 USD

Location: Camp Hill, Pennsylvania

End Time: 2024-11-07T22:52:15.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.5 USD