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Photo: Jeffrey Nintzel, Courtesy of Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth
⊠28.0 Fancy, Picturesque, and Ideal Figures
In the late eighteenth century the “fancy” figure developed as a genre of painting. These figures were meant to be picturesque renderings of children, such as girls selling flowers, boys engaged in chores, or old men whose physiognomy suggests either their faith or their defiance of death. Often such pictures had a moralizing undercurrent. Johnson did a few such figures, sometimes European figures dressed in quaint local costumes but in keeping with his times he moved toward realism. —PH
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Hills no. 28.0.4
Baur no. 130
Peasant Girl of Brabant
1863
Oil on canvas
15 x 12 1/4 in. (38.1 x 31.1 cm)
Signed and dated verso, upper left: E. Johnson/ –63 [according to Baur 1940; not visible during Hills examination, 1990, possibly due to relining]
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Markings
Gilded wooden frame label: Peasant Girl of Brabant / EASTMAN JOHNSON
Verso of frame, in black marker or crayon: #B‑1 [B‑1 circled]; verso of frame, in red marker: # B‑1; stamp on verso of canvas: Prepared by [?]/New York
Provenance
[Leavitt Art Rooms, New York, May 2–3, 1876, Private Collection of Mr. J. Stricker Jenkins, Baltimore, Md., no. 38 (as Peasant Girl of Brabant)]
Private collection
Exhibitions
Jenkins Collection, Baltimore, 1870, no. 11, as
Peasant Girl of Brabant, owner J. Stricker Jenkins, Baltimore
.
References
Catalogue of Valuable Paintings, The Private Collection of Mr. J. Stricker Jenkins, Baltimore, Md. New York:
Leavitt Art Rooms,
1876.
Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 38, as
Peasant Girl of Brabant.
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY:
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences,
1940.
Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 65, no. 130, as
Peasant Girl of Brabant.
Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In
Eastman Johnson: Painting America,
by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills.
Brooklyn, NY:
Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications,
1999.
Exhibition catalogue, p. 261, as
Peasant Girl of Brabant.
Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): 1990-07-18
Examination notes: Pencil graphite lines on sleeves of glove, eyes, eyebrows, edge of nose, lips. Full lips—E.J.-like. Dark masses of eye sockets—characteristic. Coral cross—highlights on brooch—characteristic. Use of underpainting for half-tones—e.g., where sleeve meets dress.
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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. "Peasant Girl of Brabant, 1863 (Hills no. 28.0.4)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1166 (accessed on December 2, 2024).