Spring Lamb

Spring Lamb is a concise wood engraving created by the American artist Winslow Homer in 1880. This piece exemplifies Homer's prolific work in the field of journalistic illustration during the late 19th century, a period when he specialized in creating genre scenes and documentation for popular magazines.

As a print classified work, the image demonstrates the precise line work and careful cross-hatching characteristic of the wood engraving technique. Unlike older relief processes, wood engraving allowed for greater detail and smoother tonal transitions, making it the preferred medium for mass-produced illustrated materials distributed widely across the United States. Homer's compositions, often focused on rural life, captured the simplicity and dignity of contemporary culture.

Though known today primarily for his oil paintings and watercolors, Homer established his early reputation through black-and-white images like this, frequently published in popular periodicals such as Harper's Weekly. The subject matter, centered around the titular young animal, suggests a gentle, pastoral scene typical of the period's domestic aesthetic. This impression of the work resides in the permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, contributing to the institution’s significant holdings of American works on paper. Due to its age and nature as a historical illustration, many of Homer's popular prints from this era have entered the public domain, allowing researchers and enthusiasts to study these fundamental examples of his draughtsmanship.