Winslow Homer painted the Old Drover’s Inn in 1887 (left), a few years after he and his family moved to Prout’s Neck, Maine. The pastoral subject matter is exceptional among Homer’s work there—most of his scenes were of the sea and fishermen. In the end, it’s the cows, not the house, that make this watercolor a triumph; few artists are able to impart animation to such stolid animals. Cows were a banal fact of life in Homer’s America, but he saw their beauty.