Detail of Dressing for the Carnival by Winslow Homer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: Dressing for the Carnival

Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)

Date: 1877

Culture: American

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 20 x 30in. (50.8 x 76.2cm)
Framed: 31 9/16 × 41 1/2 × 5 7/8 in. (80.1 × 105.4 × 14.9 cm)

Credit Line: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amelia B. Lazarus Fund, 1922

Accession Number: 22.220

Painted at the end of Reconstruction—marked by the final withdrawal of federal troops from the South—Homer’s challenging subject evokes both the dislocation and endurance of African American culture that was a legacy of slavery. The central figure represents a Jonkonnu character, a Christmas holiday celebration once observed by enslaved Blacks in Virginia and North Carolina. Rooted in the culture of the British West Indies, the festival blended African and English traditions. After the Civil War, aspects were incorporated into Independence Day events, to which the painting’s original title, "Sketch—4th of July in Virginia," referred. The theme of independence was particularly relevant in the Reconstruction era, when newly emancipated African Americans briefly enjoyed full civil rights.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11116