Eagle Head, Manchester

Painted in 1870, this beach scene by Winslow Homer depicts bathers at Eagle Head, a rocky point in Manchester-by-the-Sea on the Massachusetts coast. Emerging after a swim, a woman wrings out her heavy bathing clothes and hair while a small dog appears startled by the dripping water. After the Civil War, Homer frequently explored women's changing roles in society, and this modern leisure subject confounded critics when it was first exhibited in New York in 1870, perhaps for its disquieting sense of voyeurism and mystery. Some viewers focused on questions of decorum and class, objecting to the bathers' state of undress even though they wear typical bathing costumes of the era. The painting is now in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.