The Gulf Stream

A man in a broken sloop drifts in the Gulf Stream, surrounded by circling sharks. A waterspout advances from the left. In the upper left, tiny and easy to miss, a full- rigged ship sails on the horizon. Homer added the ship in 1906 — seven years after the painting was first shown — after critics found the scene too bleak. When asked what happens next, Homer wrote: 'You can tell these ladies that the unfortunate sailor will be rescued and returned to his friends & home.' The Met bought it that year. Now at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York @metmuseum