Focus on Max Schmitt in a Single Scull and explore the The painting.
Eakins returned to Philadelphia in July 1870, following four years of study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was a witness to Schmitt's victory in October. The painting's composition echoes the event by reproducing the weather conditions and position of the sun at the date and time of Schmitt's triumph. Rather than in the midst of the competition, Schmitt is depicted nearly at rest – dragging his oars with the disappearing eddies of his course visible in the water. The location is just downstream of the Columbia Railroad Bridge, the site of the turn in the race.Eakins, a keen oarsman himself who "was especially fascinated by rowing as a strenuous image expressive of physical as well as moral discipline", painted himself as the rower in the middle distance. He signed the painting – "Eakins, 1871" – on the stern of his scull.  This was the first of his almost thirty rowing works – sketches, oil paintings, watercolors, perspective drawings – created by the end of 1874.The painting shows the influences of his tutors in France, Jean-Léon Gérôme and Léon Bonnat, and of Diego Velázquez, the Spanish artist.
École des Beaux-Arts Philadelphia Jean-Léon Gérôme Diego Velázquez Paris Léon Bonnat Columbia Railroad Bridge