Catalogue Entry
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: