Max Schmitt im Einer

Thomas Eakins painted this to mark a friend's victory. Max Schmitt, whom Eakins had known since high school in Philadelphia, took the single sculls championship on the Schuylkill River in October 1870, and Eakins set him in the still afternoon light on that same water. Eakins was a keen oarsman himself, and he painted his own likeness into the scene, rowing in the middle distance, with his name and the date lettered on the back of his boat. He worked out the angle of the sun and the look of the sky to match the actual day and hour of the race. Bare autumn trees line the far bank, and a train crosses a stone bridge in the distance.