Catalogue Entry
Only one such graphite tracing by Johnson is known to exist. It is an intermediate drawing used in the transfer process discussed by conservator Sheldon Keck in “A Use of Infra-Red Photography in the Study of Technique,” Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts, 1941:
Johnson's procedure, as thus reconstructed, seems to have been to prepare carefully in advance of his painting a drawing of the whole or of important parts. In this he determined as well the modelling and chiaroscuro to be used in his painting. He next traced the drawing and transferred the outline to the picture priming. He diligently followed this outline in his application of paint. The drawing of the "Girl with Glass" of which a painted version appears in "The New Bonnet" illustrates this conclusion. The measurements of the drawn and painted figures coincide and the infra-red photograph reveals the guide lines in the painting.
—PH
Hills, 2022: Hills saw this drawing loosely affixed to the back of The Catskill Mill on July 10, 1971. This drawing clearly suggests that Johnson made simple summary and outline drawings that he then transferred onto a canvas. (See Keck 1941, which describes Johnson’s working method.) Unfortunately, such summary drawings do not exist except for this example. Perhaps he threw them away when he no longer had use for them, or his widow Elizabeth Johnson disposed of them when she remarried.
MacGibeny, 2022: The provenance shown assumes that the drawing was attached to the back of The Catskill Mill at the time of the 1907 sale of Johnson's estate, thus purchased together with the painting, which seems likely.
Baur 1940, p. 41, note for The Catskill Mill: "There is a pencil sketch of a girl on the back."
