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Who was Max Schmitt in Thomas Eakins’s painting The Champion Single Sculls?
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Thomas Eakins
Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic), oil on canvas by Thomas Eakins, 1875; part of the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Art Museum. 2 × 2.5 m.
In the painting The Champion Single Sculls (1871), Max Schmitt is depicted as a boyhood friend of the artist Thomas Eakins.1
Eakins meticulously composed the painting to commemorate Schmitt’s recent victory in a prestigious single scull race held on October 5, 1870. The artist included several specific details to honor this achievement, such as positioning Schmitt’s boat at the exact location of the race's finish line and setting the scene during the late afternoon to reflect the time the event took place. Eakins, who was also an avid rower, included a self-portrait in the painting, appearing as the rower in the middle distance behind his friend.12