# The Herring Net

- By: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
- Date: 1885
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 76.5 × 122.9 cm (30 1/8 × 48 3/8 in.)
- Culture: Prouts Neck
- Credit line: Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/25865)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/5dca7347-c6dc-24dd-d073-d705b9cdc575/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Long inspired by the sea, Winslow Homer spent time in 1881 in a fishing community in Tynemouth, England. The experience fundamentally changed his life and work. His paintings thereafter focused almost exclusively on humankind’s age-old contest with nature. In The Herring Net, executed in Prouts Neck, Maine, Homer depicted the heroic efforts of fishermen at their daily work. In a small dory, one figure hauls in glistening herring, while the other, possibly a boy, unloads the catch. Laboring far from the schooners on the horizon, the pair strives to steady the precarious boat as it rides the incoming swells.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0