Catalogue Entry
When Johnson returned from Europe late in 1855 and moved in with his family in Washington, D.C., he began receiving portrait commissions. On his trip to Superior, Michigan, in 1856 and 1857, he did charcoal portrait drawings of family and friends. Like the commissioned drawings done earlier, Johnson generally used charcoal (named in some records as black chalk) with touches of white, but the strong chiaroscuro is less evident for his women sitters. Many of these portraits are in pastel, which creates a softer visage. In his later professional years as a painter of oil portraits there are few portraits of women. His art commanded high prices; perhaps families were then reluctant to include their women members as portrait sitters. —PH
Hills, 2022: It is not clear why this drawing is inscribed "Mrs. Alexander Hamilton."
MacGibeny, 2022: This drawing on the verso of Johnson's portrait of his grandmother Judith Farnum Chandler previously was titled Unidentified Woman. The sitter has now been identified as Wilhelmina Frederika Anna Elisabeth Marie (Princess Marie of Holland) based on her resemblance to Johnson's painted portrait dated 1874. See the linked comparison images.
Questions remain: Why is only part of the sitter's head included? If Johnson painted the portrait in 1874 after his drawing of 1855, as stated in his inscription on the back of the painting, what role did this partial drawing play? Since the face is reversed in the drawing in relation to the painting, it is possible that the drawing was used for transfer purposes during the creation of the painting.
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