Three Boys in a Dory with Lobster Pots

A meditation on marine life, Winslow Homer’s Three Boys in a Dory with Lobster Pots harkens back to the painter’s summer sojourn in Gloucester, Massachusetts, two years earlier. The artist based the composition on two related works, an illustration for Harper’s Weekly and a small oil painting, both completed in 1873. This watercolor represents a distillation of these designs. Homer placed the boat deeper in space and accentuated the precarious positions of lobster traps on the bow and boys at the stern. His changes reduced the scene’s anecdotal quality, so that it evokes not only a narrow slice of everyday life, but also, more broadly, the boys’ preparation for adulthood.