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

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society
31.3 U.S. Portraits, Women

Johnson’s paintings of women are often his best portraits, exhibiting a range of techniques and emphasizing their intelligent faces even when enwrapped in sumptuous fabrics, such as we see in Edwina Booth. —PH

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Hills no. 31.3.20
Baur no. 174
Sarah Fairchild Dean
Wisconsin Historical Society Museum title: Mrs. Sarah Fairchild Conover
Alternate titles: Mrs. Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover; Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover
1856, October
Oil on canvas
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
Signed and dated: E. Johnson, Superior, October, 1856
Provenance
Lucius and Frances Bull Fairchild, brother and sister-in law of the sitter
Wisconsin Historical Society Museum, Madison, Wisconsin, likely 1910s or 1920s (by gift)
References
Butts 1936
Butts, Porter. Art in Wisconsin. Madison, WI: Democratic Printing Co., 1936, p. 98.
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 67, no. 174, as Mrs. Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover.
Minnesota History Magazine 1940
"News and Comment." Minnesota History Magazine 21, no. 4 (1940), p. 429: "…Mrs. Sarah Fairchild Dean, whose husband, Eliab B. Dean, was receiver of the land office at Superior. A portrait of Mrs. Dean, painted by Eastman Johnson while he was living in Superior, is reproduced with the present article".
Jensen 1976
Jensen, James F. "Nineteenth-Century American Painting and Sculpture at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin." Antiques 110, no. 5 (1976), p. 1016 "One of the most interesting and prominent families—socialy, politically, and artistically—in nineteenth-century Wisconsin was the Fairchild family of Madison. In their travels and through their extensive social connections, they met many famous American and European artists. One of the happy results of just such a chance meeting is the Society's portrait of Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover by Eastman Johnson. It was painted in 1856 when the sitter, vacationing on Lake Superior, was introduced to Johnson, who was on a sketching tour".
Magazine Antiques 1976c
The Magazine Antiques (New York) 110, no. 5 (November 1976), p. 1016, color reproduction, as Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Conover, Sarah Fairchild Dean (Mrs. Eliab Dean; later, Mrs. Obadiah Conover)
Biography:

Sarah Fairchild Dean Conover (1827–1912). Member of a prominent Madison Family. Sister of Civil War hero and governor Lucius Fairchild; married Eliab Dean (m. 1848). Divorced and later married professor Obadiah Conover (m. 1883). 

Related work
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Conover, Sarah Fairchild Dean (Mrs. Eliab Dean; later, Mrs. Obadiah Conover)
Keywords
Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Sarah Fairchild Dean, 1856, October (Hills no. 31.3.20)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?SystemID=725 (accessed on March 29, 2024).