Late in the 1890s, accompanied by several of his friends, Thomas Eakins attended prizefights at the Arena on the corner of Broad and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia, diagonally across from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a few blocks from his Chestnut Street studio. Eakins was sufficiently intrigued by the matches he saw to befriend several of the participants and to ask them to pose for him. The results were three major canvases—Taking the Count (1898), Salutat (1898—Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.), and Between Rounds (1899)—and about ten related sketches, studies, and portraits.

Taking the Count celebrates Thomas Eakins's lifelong fascination with athleticism and human endurance. A fallen fighter struggles to recover from a punishing blow, as all eyes in the crowd focus on the referee counting off the seconds that could mark the end of the match. The actual fight took place in Philadelphia on Friday, April 29, 1898, between Charley McKeever (standing) and Jack Daly and was refereed by H. Walter Schlichter. With this monumental painting, the first of Eakins's three great boxing pictures, the artist placed the theme into the context of the fine arts. Until Eakins undertook the subject, visual representations of prizefighting had been found almost exclusively in the press and in prints. One can think of few works by a serious artist of Eakins' era as far removed from the lofty propriety that dominated 19th-century American art as are these treatments of nearly nude boxers. Taking the Count represents a stunning statement set against the sophisticated conventions of the period.