Backgammon

Backgammon is a notable wood engraving created by the American artist Winslow Homer between 1872 and 1882. This print exemplifies Homer’s significant contributions to illustration and printmaking during the post-Civil War era in the United States. While many associate Homer primarily with oil paintings and watercolors, his prolific output of wood engravings, often reproduced in widely circulated periodicals like Harper's Weekly, were essential for disseminating his artistic vision to a mass audience.

Homer often focused on intimate scenes of domestic life and leisure, themes highly resonant with the 19th-century public. As a wood engraving, the creation of this piece required expert collaboration between the artist, who typically provided the initial sketch or design, and skilled professional engravers who executed the demanding work on the block. The resulting texture and tonal contrasts characteristic of this print medium allowed Homer to capture the focused intensity of the players engaged in the popular parlor game referenced in the title.

This work classifies formally as a print, demonstrating the growing interest in visual documentation of American leisure and domestic scenes of the late 19th century. Many such prints, prized for their narrative quality and accessibility, eventually entered the public domain, though they retain high scholarly value as historical records of American culture. This impression of Backgammon is held in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, reflecting the institution’s commitment to preserving important examples of 19th-century graphic arts from the United States.