Description

Mabel Dwight often visited the Battery neighborhood’s aquarium in Manhattan, which had opened in 1896 and was where, as she wrote in her unpublished autobiography, she observed the “expressions of aloof wonder” of the people staring through the glass to the “small world” beyond. She wrote humorously about the scene depicted in the print, describing how, during one visit, she observed a man and a grouper fish trying to outstare one another until “both swam away."