![Joseph Story, c.September 1845–47 (Hills no. 43.1.19). Brady, Mathew B. [Joseph Story, half-length portrait, facing front, with spectacles.] Photograph. c. 1844–45. From Library of Congress Daguerreotype collection. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004664059/ (accessed January 19, 2022).](https://cdn.panopticoncr.com/eastjoh001/catalogue_images/supp_sm/wgjipnmh/Joseph%20Story%20reference%20image%20%28Mathew%20Brady%20-%20LOC%29.jpg)
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
MacGibeny, 2022: The existence of this drawing is derived from the reproduction on the title page of Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Prose Writers of America, London, 1847. Story was a Supreme Court justice and prolific author of books on the law. See the linked reproduction, which suggests the appearance of the drawing.
Story died in September 1845 at the age of 65, and is depicted in the reproduction as a much younger man than he was in the linked daguerreotype of Story by Mathew Brady, c.1844–1845. Johnson may have done the drawing posthumously.
The reproduction was captioned "From a Picture by J. E. Johnson, in possession of Richard Peters." It seems likely that Peters was the same Richard Peters who, like Story, had been employed by the Supreme Court and portrayed by Johnson.
Joseph Story (September 18, 1779–September 10, 1845). Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts’s 2nd district (1808–1809) and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1812–1845.
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
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