The Army of the Potomac - A Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862): Art, History and Details

The Army of the Potomac - A Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Although now most famous as a painter, Homer was also a graphic artist throughout his career and from 1857 provided illustrations for the New York-based Harper's Weekly. When the Civil War began in 1861, the magazine sent Homer to Virginia, where he made numerous drawings of the military. He seldom depicted actual fighting, instead candidly describing everyday camp life. The drawings were reproduced as wood engravings (professionals cut the blocks), the technique used to reproduce illustrations in magazines and books before the development of photomechanical processes.

Object facts

• Title: The Army of the Potomac - A Sharpshooter on Picket Duty
• Date: 1862
• Creator attribution: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
• Culture: America
• Type: Print
• Technique: wood engraving
• Collection: PR - Wood engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1942.1262

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.