Winslow Homer, A Visit from the Old Mistress
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans · Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian Open Access (CC0)View original →
Winslow Homer

A Visit from the Old Mistress

1876

Current Collection

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Washington, D.C., United States

Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
45.7 × 61 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-134231

A Visit from the Old Mistress captures a tentative encounter in the postwar South. The freed slaves are no longer obliged to greet their former mistress with welcoming gestures, and one remains seated as she would not have been allowed to do before the war. Winslow Homer composed the work from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia; it conveys a silent tension between two communiti…

Provenance

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans

Registry history

  • 1876 — Recorded in the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum

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