Seventy Years Ago,

1877

Acknowledged as one of America’s greatest artists, Thomas Eakins produced only about two dozen watercolors in his lifetime. Their tight control and almost scientific precision clearly reflect his training in calligraphy, perspective, anatomy, and drawing from life. This superb example attests to his mastery of the medium, combining delicate and complex rendering of details, as in the woman’s face and fingers, with more spontaneous ­brushwork, evident in the shadows behind her and in the table at the right. <em>Seventy Years Ago</em> belongs to a group of small oils and watercolors depicting female subjects in settings inspired by historical interiors. The inclusion of period details, such as the Chippendale chair and tilt-top table, reflects Eakins’s interest in the early Federal period in Philadelphia, an era then being widely reexplored as part of the Colonial Revival inspired by the nation’s centennial in 1876. Thematically, the watercolor relates to several of Eakins’s best-known paintings from the 1870s, many of which share a central concentration on the synergy between head and hands, the mutual dependence of the cerebral and the physical, whether seen in rowing a scull or playing a piano.