Max Schmitt, a champion rower and friend of the artist, rests on his oars on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia in the late afternoon light. Iron bridges cross the river in the distance.

Thomas Eakins rowed himself, and he put himself in the picture: the man in the second boat, farther back, is Eakins. He signed his name and the date, 1871, on the side of that boat.