Right and Left

Winslow Homer painted two golden-eye ducks at the moment of death, shot by an unseen hunter whose boat and gun flash appear at the picture's edge. The birds hang suspended against a grey sky and churning water, caught between life and death.

The title comes from hunting terminology: "right and left" meant shooting two birds with consecutive barrels of a shotgun. Homer completed this painting at age 72, two years before his death, making it effectively his artistic farewell. The composition places viewers in the position of the dying birds, looking toward the hunter who kills them.

The painting hangs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.