''Taking the Count'' is an 1898 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is part of the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. This depiction of a

prizefight Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

marks Eakins' return to anatomical studies of the male figure, this time in a more urban setting. ''Taking the Count'' was his second largest canvas, but not his most successful composition. The same may be said of his '' Wrestlers'' (1899). More successful was '' Between Rounds'' (1899), for which boxer Billy Smith posed seated in his corner at

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

's Arena; in fact, all of principal figures in this composition were posed by models re-enacting what had been an actual

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

match.Goodrich, Vol. II, ''op. cit.,'' p. 149.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taking the Count 1898 paintings Boxing in art Paintings by Thomas Eakins Sports paintings

See also

References