Catalogue Entry
When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.
He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH
MacGibeny, 2021: This painting seems likely to be the one that Elizabeth Johnson, Eastman Johnson's widow, referred to as both an unfinished portrait and a duplicate of the version at the University of Chicago, according to a letter dated May 27, 1906, in the collection of the Rockefeller Archive Center. Mr. L. M. Bowers, acting as an agent for John D. Rockefeller to preserve the sitter's anonymity, had visited Mrs. Johnson to explore the purchase of the large portrait now owned by Rockefeller University which was in her possession at the time of his death; she had the smaller unfinished portrait as well. As Bowers wrote to Rockefeller, "we may be able to buy both at a price satisfactory to you."
Rockefeller replied on May 29: "I did not know about the unfinished portrait…I presume if we buy the other, she will throw in this one. I leave the matter in your hands, to do as as you think wise under the circumstances, as you would do if the case were your own."
Bowers' June 16 letter to Mr. George D. Rogers, apparently a financial intermediary, seems to confirm the intent to purchase both portraits for Rockefeller. "Mr. McGean will probably call on you and you will please give him whatever he may want to pay for one or both the finished and the unfinished portraits, both of which Mr R authorizes me to buy, net beyond $2500. We expect to get both for from $1500. to $2000. but it is not to be known that they are being bought for Mr R but for the Linseed Co offices." While the large portrait is known to have been owned by Rockefeller, passed down to his daughter, and eventually gifted to Rockefeller University, the ownership of the smaller portrait is unconfirmed.
John Davison (“J. D.”) Rockefeller (1839–1937). Oil baron who founded Standard Oil Co. and prospered greatly thanks to his business acumen. Largely responsible for creating the University of Chicago, as well as other notable philanthropy. Son of William Avery and Elizabeth (Davison) Rockefeller. Married Laura Celestia Spelman (m. 1864); father of five children.
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
- Portrait pose: