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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: © President and Fellows of Harvard College
43.3 U.S. Early Portrait Drawings, Women

Johnson's earliest recorded portrait drawings of women are dated 1845: his portrait of Dolley Madison that indicates the setting and one of his older sister Judith which shows head and neck only. Unlike the portraits of men, his portraits of women are softer in light-dark chiaroscuro and do not exhibit the muscular structure of the face as do those of men. Johnson consolidated his draughtsman’s talents during his sojourn in Boston, where he painted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his circle. 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

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Hills no. 43.3.12
1907 Sale no. 110
Dorothy Dandridge Payne Todd Madison
1907 Sale title: The Famous Dolly [sic] Madison
Harvard Art Museums title: Dolley Madison (1768–1849)
Alternate titles: Crayon Sketch of Dolly [sic] Madison; Dolley Madison; Dolly [sic] Madison; Mrs. James (Dolly) [sic] Madison; Portrait of Dolly [sic] Madison
1846, March
Black and white chalk on buff wove paper
21 1/4 x 14 3/4 in. (54 x 37.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower left, in black chalk: E. Johnson / Mch. 1846
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2022: Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.

MacGibeny, 2022: American Art News, "Eastman Johnson Sale," March 2, 1907, reported that this portrait (then titled The Famous Dolly [sic] Madison) was one of two works commanding the highest price ($810) at the 1907 sale of Johnson's estate. The other was the painting Embers.

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 110: "This is a crayon portrait made from life with sittings at her own residence in Washington in 1846. Everyone is familiar with Mrs. Madison’s social position at the national capital, where she was a great favorite, and where she was granted the freedom of the floor of the Senate chamber—the only woman to whom this honor was accorded—and also given the franking privilege. Her salons were second in importance only to those of the White House. Her great friend, Mr. Daniel Webster, wished to possess this portrait. Eastman Johnson was unwilling to part with it, but made another for Daniel Webster on the order of Gov. Robert C. Winthrop."
"Signature at lower left, E. Johnson, March, 1846.
Height, 22 ¼ inches; width, 16 inches."
[Annotation: “810.00 / O. Burnet – agent for John Mack (d.) Albany / Reprod. Putnam’s Monthly”]
Labels
Label on backing paper, printed, with design of shield with lion rampant: GRENVILLE / LINDALL / WINTHROP
Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
[The artist's estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 26–27, 1907, no. 110 (as The Famous Dolly [sic] Madison)]
John Mack, Albany, New York (Otto Bernet, agent), February 27, 1907 (by purchase)
[American Art Association, New York, March 17, 1922, Uncommon Americana: Books, Manuscripts, Views, Portraits…Selections from the Collections of the late John Mack of Albany, New York [and others], no. 236 (as Crayon Sketch of Dolly Madison)]
E. F. Bonaventure Art Galleries, New York
Grenville L. Winthrop, 1922 (by purchase)
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1943 (by bequest)
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as Dolly [sic] Madison.
1972 Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, American Art at Harvard, April 19–June 18, 1972. (Bolton et al 1972), no. 67.
References
French 1906
French, Edgar. "An American Portrait Painter of Three Historical Epochs." World's Work 13, no. 2 (December 1906), p. 8309, illus., as Dolly [sic] Madison.
Putnam's Monthly 1907
"An American Painter: Eastman Johnson." Putnam's Monthly 2, no. 5 (August 1907), pp. 534, 537, illus.
AAA 1907b
Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 110, as The Famous Dolly [sic] Madison.
American Art News 1907b
"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907), p. 3, as Dolly [sic] Madison.
Hartmann 1908
Hartmann, Sadakichi. "Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter." The International Studio 34 (April 1908), p. 108.
American Magazine 1909
"The American Woman." American Magazine (November 1909), p. 210, illus. captioned "From the original drawing made in 1848 [sic] by Eastman Johnson, in whose studio it was photographed for Mr. Hart in 1897, and now reproduced for the first time," [Incorrect: Mrs. Alexander Hamilton was reproduced in Hart].
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 11, addendum "Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Dolly Madison].
AAA 1922a
Uncommon Americana: Books, Manuscripts, Views, Portraits including Rare Items Relating to California and the West, Selections from the Collections of the late John Mack of Albany, New York [and Others]…and Including Portraits of Noted Americans. New York: American Art Association, March 17, 1922. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 236, illus. frontispiece, as Crayon Sketch of Dolly [sic] Madison.
Bolton 1923
Bolton, Theodore. Early American Portrait Draughtsmen in Crayon. New York: F. F. Sherman, 1923, p. 40, no. 28.
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. 6.
Devere 1940
Devere, Howard. "New York Exhibition Reviews." Magazine of Art (Washington, DC) 33, no. 1 (January 1940), p. 40.
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. 67.
Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 7, illus., as Dolley Madison.
Hills 1977
Hills, Patricia. The Genre Paintings of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1977, pp. ix, 24, 192, fig. 3, illus., as Dolley Madison.
Carbone and Hills 1999
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), pp. 12–13, 217, fig. 2, illus., as Dolley Madison.
Turner 2000
Turner, Jane. The Encyclopedia of American Art before 1914. London: Macmillan, 2000, p. 262.
Ketcham 2009
Ketcham, Ralph. The Madisons at Montpelier: Reflections on the Founding Couple. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2009, p. 166, illus.
Stebbins 2014
Stebbins,Theodore E., Jr., and Melissa Renn. American Paintings at Harvard. Volume 1: Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels by Artists Born before 1826. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014, p. 307.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Madison, Dorothy Dandridge Payne Todd
Biography:

Dorothea Dandridge Payne Todd Madison (1768–1849). Wife of James Madison, fourth president of the United States, 1809–1817 [Note that contrary to the published birth year in the National Cyclopaedia of Biography, her actual birth year was 1768, according to the National Archives].

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

Related work
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Madison, Dorothy Dandridge Payne Todd
Keywords
Record last updated June 9, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Dorothy Dandridge Payne Todd Madison, 1846, March (Hills no. 43.3.12)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?SystemID=925 (accessed on April 20, 2024).