#437 USA...Thanks Ira!

The 44c stamp on the right is the ninth issuance in the American Treasures series features Boys in a Pasture, an 1874 painting by Winslow Homer.

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is considered one of the greatest American painters of the 19th century. According to the Museum of Fine Arts, the boys in this painting—companionable, idle, at peace—may be seen as emblems of America's nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent time as well as of its hope for the future. Their faces are averted, a device Homer often used to make his figures less individual and, therefore, more universal.

The painting is part of the Hayden Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.