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
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."
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–.
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