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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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[ 31.3 U.S. Portraits, Women ]info
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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. 31.3.40
Elizabeth Caldwell McQuade
c.1856–57
Locale: Superior, Wisconsin
Oil
[dimensions unknown]
Present whereabouts unknown
This catalogue raisonné strives to reproduce the available historical information, as it was written in the period, while acknowledging that readers today may find many of these terms objectionable or racist. Please see the Racist Language/Negative Stereotypes Statement »
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2021: In his 1906 article published in the Superior [Wisconsin] Telegram, Hiram Hayes, husband of Johnson's niece Mary Elizabeth Newton Hayes (daughter of his sister Sarah Osgood Johnson Newton), recalled that Johnson had painted portraits of the parents of Sam McQuade. It seems likely that the story told earlier by Mrs. Hayes in a 1901 article in The Evening Telegram, about a man in Superior offering Johnson gold to paint portraits of his parents, refers to the McQuades. Descendants of the sitters report that the portraits were painted from daguerreotypes.

Provenance
Samuel C. McQuade, Superior, Wisconsin, son of the sitter, 1856–1857 (by commission)
Present whereabouts unknown
References
Hayes 1901
Hayes, Mrs. Mary E. "Reminscenses [sic] of Superior 1856–1901." Women's Edition of The Evening Telegram (Superior, WI), 1901, Recounts story that Johnson told about leaving Superior, Wisconsin: he had "found himself without means to get back to New York, so he made a bargain with a gentleman who was fortunate enough to have some money in gold, to paint the portraits of his parents for a sum that afterwards would have been ludicrous to mention. I think it was fifty dollars for the two…And yet, as he said he was very glad to get the fifty dollars, and considered the portraits as good as he had ever done, up to that time." This could be a reference to the portraits of James and Elizabeth McQuade, commissioned by their son, Samuel McQuade.
Hayes 1906
Hayes, Col. Hiram. "Memories of the 50s: Recalled by the Yuletide." Superior Telegram (Superior, WI), December 21, 1906, "He painted some pale-faces, too, among which I remember were the portraits of Sam McQuade's father and mother, of Duluth".
Benson, Gertrude 1940
Gertrude (Mrs. Anthony F.) Benson letter to John Baur, May 10, 1940, Brooklyn Museum Archives, Benson states that she has "the original daguerreotype of Elizabeth [McQuade] from which the portrait was copied."
Sitter Biography
Sitter: McQuade, Elizabeth Caldwell
Biography:

Elizabeth Caldwell McQuade (1802–1866). Wife of James McQuade.

Keywords
Record last updated March 22, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Elizabeth Caldwell McQuade, c.1856–57 (Hills no. 31.3.40)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1133 (accessed on May 7, 2024).