  About the Artwork
  
  
  Winslow Homer served as a war correspondent for Harper’s Weekly magazine during the Civil War. By the summer of 1864, the southern cause was lost but the Army of Northern Virginia fought on, defending the Confederate capital at Richmond. At Petersburg, which guarded the approach to Richmond from the south, the siege lasted nine months through the winter of 1864–65. This sets the scene for Homer’s young Confederate soldier to taunt the opposing force. Bored with trench warfare, he stands defiantly and challenges the Union sharpshooters to fire at him. Homer went to the Petersburg front on two occasions, possibly visiting the Confederate defenses after their retreat to help imagine this scene.
  
  
  Title
  Defiance: Inviting a Shot Before Petersburg
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1864
  
  Artist
  Winslow Homer
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1836-1910
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on panel
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 12 × 18 inches (30.5 × 45.7 cm)
  Framed: 19 3/4 × 25 3/4 × 2 3/4 inches (50.2 × 65.4 × 7 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Founders Society Purchase with funds from Dexter M. Ferry, Jr.
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  51.66
  
  
  Copyright
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