The Lost Museum Archive
Circassian Girl and Prize Old Man, Detail
This sketch probably dates from the late 1890s, when Homer was caring for his elderly and eccentric father, Winslow Homer, Sr. The artist caricatured his father's mane of long hair by comparing it to the famously wild hairstyle of the "Circassian" women exhibited in circus sideshows and dime museums. The informal sketch suggests the degree to which, after nearly a half century of exhibition, the image of the "Circassian" women was familiar in American culture.
Source: Winslow Homer, Circassian Girl and Prize Old Man, Detail of drawing (c. 1897).
Bowdoin College Museum of Art (gift of Homer family).