In 1877 the twenty-one year old Sargent spent the summer in Cancale on the coast of Brittany sketching fisherfolk.
He sent his first completed painting, "Fishing for Oysters at Cancale", a finished sketch, to New York for display at the newly-formed, avant garde Society of American Artists from March 6 to April 5, 1878.
Sargent submitted the second painting, "Oyster Gatherers of Cancale" (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), a larger, more finished version of the same subject, to the 1878 Paris Salon, where it was awarded an Honorable Mention.