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Winslow Homer 1874 Matted Wood Engraving

"The Chinese In New York - Scene In A Baxter Street Clubhouse"

In this 1874 engraving Winslow Homer depict a Chinese clubhouse in New York City at which opium smoking is prominently shown along with some table games. The author of "Winslow Homer's Magazine Engravings," Philip C. Beam, notes that Homer was no champion of immigrants and the disadvantaged and references but credits his objectivity in this engraving:

On the evidence of his pictures drawn during the years when he filled them with people, his orientation was seldom toward the socially disadvantaged. He was not socially conscious even though millions of immigrants were pouring through Ellis Island into the United States, creating a revolution in the character of our larger cities and transforming the country. Although this was especially true of the cities where Homer resided, Boston and New York, his references to conditions of misery, as shown in Station-House Lodgers, or The Chinese in New York were exceptions and probably done at the behest of his publishers. It is to his credit that he illustrated these scenes well when he did portray them, employing the detachment of the realists and avoiding either sentimentality or overdramatization."

Below is the print as matted (cropped a little in this picture) and enclosed in a protective plastic sleeve (which creates the camera reflections). The matted print which is in nice condition will easily pop into a standard size 16 x 20 inch frame.

Price: $125