Boat Builders, 1873
answer page

This is an example of Winslow Homer "improving" an image he saw. We can see the suggestion of the Mother/Child form in the sketch, but the Mother/Child silhouette is more true to the ideal Mother/Child in the painting.

Entirely illustrated with silhouettes and done the same year.

The brightness and contrast were adjusted to make the MOTHER/CHILD silhouette easier to see. Homer saw a mother holding a child and that was exactly what he painted, but he idealized it.

Winslow Homer, Boat Builders answer page

This visual "improving" of Nature seems to be what Samuel Taylor Coleridge was thinking about Washington Allston when he wrote this to Allston.