loading loading
Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Photo: © President and Fellows of Harvard College
43.1 U.S. Early Portrait Drawings, Men

The earliest recorded portrait drawing of a known individual by Johnson is Henry Sewell, done in Augusta, Maine, and dated November 26, 1844. Already in 1844, when Johnson was twenty, this work shows the artist's superb use of charcoal (black chalk) to highlight the lights and shadow that capture the three-dimensionality of his sitter. This talent may have been initiated from the time he worked in a lithography shop in Boston, and also the availability of mezzotints. 

The Sewell portrait also shows Johnson’s understanding of anatomy in the sitter’s facial structure. During this period, 1844–1949, Johnson almost always used charcoal (black chalk) for his portraits. Some are half-length portraits including hands, but the majority are heads (and necks) alone. He took about three days to complete a charcoal portrait. The style of the time was to present portraits in oval frames. 

See Technical Information on Johnson's Practices for a discussion of charcoal, black chalk, crayon, and pastel. —PH

View all works in this theme »

Hills no. 43.1.24
Robert Charles Winthrop
Harvard Art Museums title: Robert C. Winthrop (1809–1894)
1845, January 22
Charcoal and white chalk on buff wove paper
15 x 12 1/4 in. (38.1 x 31.1 cm) (irreg.)
Signed and dated verso, center, in black crayon[?]: J. E. Johnson, del./January 22, 1845
Description / Remarks

Robert C. Winthrop, speech to the Massachusetts Historical Society at its February 1886 meeting, at which he presented the Society with a photograph of his Johnson drawing of Daniel Webster: "It only remains for me to say that the young artist of 1846, by whom the head was taken, is now one of the most distinguished painters of our country, —Eastman Johnson, who has long had a studio in New York, and who has far more than 'fulfilled the promise of his spring,' great as that promise was. He took several other crayons in Washington at the same time, —among others, a small one of myself [this drawing], and a large and admirable one of Mrs. President Madison [Dorothy Dandridge Payne Todd Madison], which came into Mr. Webster's possession, as the gift of the artist, and which I have seen on the walls of his Marshfield residence."

Markings
Verso, bottom, in graphite: 31490
Provenance
Giovanni Castano, Castano Galleries, Boston
Meta and Paul J. Sachs, until 1965 (by purchase)
Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965 (by bequest)
Exhibitions
1947 Fogg Museum of Art
Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, New York, Drawings from the Fogg Museum of Art (Collected by Paul J. Sachs), May 12–September 25, 1947.
1972 Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, American Art at Harvard, April 19–June 18, 1972. (Bolton et al 1972), no. 66.
References
Hartmann 1908
Hartmann, Sadakichi. "Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter." The International Studio 34 (April 1908), p. 108.
Bolton et al 1972
Bolton, Kenyon Castle, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton. American Art at Harvard. Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Fogg Art Museum), no. 66, illus.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): July 28, 2010
Examination notes: Nice lights and darks. Highlight on forehead, stump and then patted in white chalk. Touches of white on spectacles.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Winthrop, Robert Charles
Biography:

Robert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894). U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, 1850–1851. Father-in-law of Elizabeth Mason, who was portrayed by Johnson when she was a child.

White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.

Keywords
Record last updated February 14, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Robert Charles Winthrop, 1845, January 22 (Hills no. 43.1.24)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?SystemID=1019 (accessed on March 28, 2024).