We look across a coral-pink beach that curves around a royal-blue bay, under a glimmering, pale blue sky in this horizontal watercolor landscape. The area of the beach closest to us is cast under a pale, plum-purple shadow. The beach curves away from us and to the right, like a backward C. At the curve, a short distance from us, a bank of emerald-green vegetation and a scrubby, dark green tree leads back to a low, grassy hill. A pair of two-story buildings with oyster-white walls and bright white roofs perch on the spit of land opposite us, across the water. Pale pink boats are pulled up onto the beach in front of and to our left of the buildings. The buildings and the green hill reflect in the water, which laps against the sand closest to us with bands of azure blue. More loosely painted buildings line the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Two brick-red smudges to our left could be people standing at the water’s edge in the distance. The sky above has puffy white clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The artist signed the painting in the lower left, “HOMER.” In the lower right, the location and date are written in dark gray, “Salt Kettle Dec 1899.”

Salt Kettle, Bermuda

Winslow Homer

We look across a coral-pink beach that curves around a royal-blue bay, under a glimmering, pale blue sky in this horizontal watercolor landscape. The area of the beach closest to us is cast under a pale, plum-purple shadow. The beach curves away from us and to the right, like a backward C. At the curve, a short distance from us, a bank of emerald-green vegetation and a scrubby, dark green tree leads back to a low, grassy hill. A pair of two-story buildings with oyster-white walls and bright white roofs perch on the spit of land opposite us, across the water. Pale pink boats are pulled up onto the beach in front of and to our left of the buildings. The buildings and the green hill reflect in the water, which laps against the sand closest to us with bands of azure blue. More loosely painted buildings line the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Two brick-red smudges to our left could be people standing at the water’s edge in the distance. The sky above has puffy white clouds against a brilliant blue sky. The artist signed the painting in the lower left, “HOMER.” In the lower right, the location and date are written in dark gray, “Salt Kettle Dec 1899.”

Colors in this work

Details
Artist
Winslow Homer
Date
1899
Medium
watercolor over graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 35.4 × 53.3 cm (13 15/16 × 21 in.)
Department
CG-W
Holding institution
National Gallery of Art
Palette

Select a color to find related artworks.

Image provider
national-gallery-of-art
License
CC0-1.0
Credit
Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel

Art Genome Taxonomy

8 tags

Subject Matter

  • Landscapes and Waterscapes Both · 99%

    The image depicts a coastal view with a curving shoreline, open bay, buildings, vegetation, and boats; the National Gallery of Art describes the work as a horizontal watercolor landscape titled Salt Kettle, Bermuda.

  • Water Visual · 99%

    Blue-green water occupies much of the foreground and middle ground, with horizontal ripples and broken reflections of the buildings and vegetation.

Visual Qualities

  • Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 88%

    The scene combines saturated coral-pink shoreline passages, deep and bright blues, emerald greens, and dark plum shadows with pale buildings and clouds.

  • Asymmetrical Visual · 88%

    The composition is asymmetrical, with the large tree and dense vegetation concentrated along the right edge, the shoreline sweeping diagonally through the foreground, and open sky and water extending across the left and center.

Medium and Techniques

  • Drawing Metadata · 99%

    The National Gallery of Art classifies the work as a drawing and identifies its medium as watercolor over graphite on wove paper.

  • Watercolor Metadata · 99%

    The catalog specifies watercolor over graphite on wove paper, consistent with the visible transparent washes and layered color passages.

  • Work on Paper Metadata · 99%

    The support is identified as wove paper, and the dimensions are given as sheet measurements.

Time Periods

  • 19th Century Art Metadata · 99%

    The work is dated 1899, placing it within the nineteenth century.

Source & rights

Winslow Homer. Salt Kettle, Bermuda. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

High-resolution sources

Catalog record ↗ Image source ↗ Image license ↗ Image-use terms ↗ Catalog metadata terms ↗

Related

Loading related artworks…