John La Farge and Winslow Homer first met in 1858; the two artists, fellow tenants in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York between 1871-80, formed a strong and steadfast friendship. Thus, when La Farge mentioned a sketching trip he took in the 1870s “with two well-known men, artists who were great friends, great cronies, asking each other all the time how to this and how to do that” while lecturing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art late in life, he was likely referring to Homer and their mutual friend, painter Elihu Vedder. According to the research of James L. Yarnall, the three men spent parts of the summer of 1865 in Newport, Rhode Island. While capturing seascapes from drastically different geographic regions of the world—La Farge’s Spearing Fish, Samoa in the Pacific Southwest and Homer’s Casting in coastal New England—these two watercolors embody their makers’ kindred color palette, light treatment, and interest in fishing.