Rail Shooting, 1876
Oil on canvas, 22 1/8 x 30 1/4 in. (56.2 x 76.8 cm)
Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903
1961.18.21
Eakins's portraits of sportsmen eloquently express his era's belief in the interrelatedness of physical and mental discipline. During the 1870s he did a series of rail hunting pictures that detail various moments of the sport in the marshy, low-lying land along the Delaware River, south of Philadelphia. The quarry, the clapper rail, a bird no larger than a small chicken, was best hunted at high tide, when the flooded marsh offered fewer hiding places and a flat-bottomed skiff could be poled over and among the reeds. With reduced reed cover, the bird is more easily detected and frightened into a slow flight. From his elevated position on the deck, Dave Wright, who propels and steers the boat, has spotted an ascending bird that probably only he can see. Wright calls his warning to the hunter, Will Schuster, then uses the long pole to steady the boat. Schuster and Wright may have been friends of the Eakins family or local residents. As in many of his sporting scenes, Eakins was fascinated with the tension and precision that marked the efforts of the best sportsmen.
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