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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: Courtesy of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.
37.1 U.S. Early and Euro Figure & Landscape Sketches

Johnson finished his formal schooling at fifteen and worked in a dry goods store where he began making drawings. Responding to his talent, his father sent him to work in a lithography shop in Boston, probably Bufford’s. Several figure and landscape sketches survive from the early 1840s which indicate the ways he was exploring the human figure and the landscape about him using graphite pencil. More importantly, he began to excel as a portrait draughtsman in these early years; see Themes 43.1–.9, U.S. Early Portrait Drawings.

Johnson's reason for his sojourn in Düsseldorf and The Hague, 1849–1855, was to learn to paint with oil (see Themes 1.0–5.0). To achieve that goal, he studied anatomy while still making graphite sketches of interiors, landscapes, and figures from life. Among his best composed sketches were those done on trips to the Dutch countryside, especially those done at Dongen, the Netherlands. —PH

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Hills no. 37.1.27
Interior of a Dutch Farmhouse
Alternate title: Dutch Farmhouse
1853, July 12
Pencil on paper
8 x 10 1/2 in. (20.3 x 26.7 cm)
Inscribed and dated lower left: Klein Dongen. July 12. 53.; color notes inscribed on areas of the wall around the bed
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2022: This drawing is one of nine that appear to have come from the same sketchbook. Four of five depicting Dongen, North Brabant, The Netherlands, are dated July 12–21, 1853. Dongen would have been a picturesque area for a sketching trip for Johnson, who lived a little more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) away in The Hague.

The colors that Johnson noted on areas of the wall around the bed ("dark wood," "l. grey") indicate his intention to make a painting. The sketch served as a study for his Dutch Interior, c. 1851–55.

Provenance
Baron M. L. van Reigersberg Versluys, London, great-grandson of the artist, by 1977 (by descent)
[Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1977]
Anton A. Vreede, Hamton Galleries, Kiawah, South Carolina, 1983
[Christie's, New York, August 28, 2012, Sale 2576, Christie's Interiors, lot 180 (sold as "companion drawing" with A Dutch Farmhouse)]
Paul G. Stein, August 28, 2012 (by purchase)
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2016 (by gift)
References
MacGibeny 2021
MacGibeny, Abigael. "Eastman Johnson, 'America’s Rembrandt,' Was Nurtured by His Experience in Europe." the low countries (Belgium and The Netherlands), November 16, 2021, illus., as Interior of a Dutch Farmhouse.
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Record last updated March 30, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Interior of a Dutch Farmhouse, 1853, July 12 (Hills no. 37.1.27)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?SystemID=814 (accessed on May 3, 2024).