In the Garden (Rustic Courtship)

Homer took up watercolor seriously in the summer of 1873, during a working stay in Gloucester, Massachusetts where he had gone to produce illustrations for Harper's Weekly. The following summer he continued the practice, producing a series of small, luminous watercolors depicting young women in outdoor and garden settings — works that are now considered among the foundations of the American watercolor tradition. Homer was largely self-taught: he began his career as a commercial lithographer and magazine illustrator before turning to painting in the 1860s, and he had no formal training in watercolor when he began. The painting passed through the celebrated collection of Paul and Rachel Lambert Mellon — one of the most significant private American art collections of the 20th century — and was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Art in Washington by Mrs. Paul Mellon in 2014.