Winslow Homer (1836 -1910)
Girl Shelling Peas, 1873
Oil on canvas, 24.3 x 38.2 in.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, NYC
A girl sits on the shady farmhouse porch shelling peas into a milk pan for dinner. The side or back porch was a common feature of Hurley farmhouses and served as a practical storage area and pleasant work space. The porch in this painting is the same porch with scalloped trim as in another 1873 painting by Homer titled The Dinner Horn.