Some of Johnson’s most memorable paintings were his small scale compositions of family groups. Such works as these, traditionally called “conversation pieces,” trace their pedigree to England and seventeenth-century Holland. They were commissioned group portraits of wealthy patrons as they wanted to be seen, usually surrounded by sumptuous furnishing and a coterie of family and friends. —PH
MacGibeny, 2021: Charles Hammond Blatchford, Jr., son of one of the sitters, noted the commission of this painting in his biography about his grandparents, Eliphalet W. Blatchford & Mary E. W. Blatchford: The Story of Two Chicagoans, 1962: "Mary Blatchford and her sons spent that summer of 1880 at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She arranged for Charley and Huntington to sit for a portrait by Eastman Johnson at the artist's studio on Nantucket as a surprise gift to Eliphalet [her husband, their father] the following Christmas."
Charles Hammond Blatchford (1874–1953). Son of Eliphalet Wickes Blatchford and Mary Williams Blatchford; brother of Eliphalet Huntington Blatchford (1876–1905), with whom he was portrayed by Johnson.
Eliphalet Huntington Blatchford (1876–1905). Son of Eliphalet Wickes Blatchford and Mary Williams Blatchford; brother of Charles Hammond Blatchford (1874–1953), with whom he was portrayed by Johnson.
- Portrait pose: