Catalog illustration of a drawing block of the type Homer used

Homer executed Sunshine and Shadow, Prout’s Neck (figure c) on sheets of Whatman watercolor paper that were bound in a solid block with a gumlike adhesive and gauze of four sides (see figure a). These drawing blocks, as they were often called, were described in an 1855 Winsor and Newton catalog: “These sketch books contain a number of sheets of paper strained and securely fastened at the edge, so that a watercolour picture may be entirely executed upon it, and, when …