A Longshoreman

John George Brown

National Gallery of Art

In this painting, there is a man seated on the ground, one leg bent and one left stretched in front of him, facing the left. He sits in front of what looks like a stack of cotton bales, with fluffy white material peeking out of brown fabric. The man has peach-colored skin and a short brown beard, and his hair is obscured by a tan hat with a black ribbon. He wears a long-sleeved light blue shirt and light blue trousers, with a patch of red on his chest - perhaps a handkerchief in a breast pocket. His arms rest on his legs, and he has on dark brown boots. He has a white-and-silver pipe in his mouth and a wooden mallet or hammer tucked into his belt. The wall behind the brown bales is a brownish-gray color, and the floor beneath the man is brown, and scattered with white tufts.