Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné

Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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[ 20.1 Boys Indoors ]

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20.1 Boys Indoors

Young boys have been a traditional staples of genre painting. To patrons of art during the mid-nineteenth century these youths recalled memories of their own growing years in which innocence was becoming more and more modified by mischievous cunning. —PH

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Hills no. 20.1.4

Sulky Boy at School

Alternate titles: possibly Boy in a Corner; possibly The Sulky Boy; The Dull Scholar

1861

Oil

11 x 9 in. (27.9 x 22.9 cm)

Signed and dated lower right: E. Johnson, 1861.

Present whereabouts unknown

Description / Remarks

American Art Association sale catalogue, 1903: "This is a charming example of Johnson's domestic genre, natural and full of character; moreover, an artist's interpretation of the subject, harmonious in tone and excellent in craftsmanship. In the corner of a room with drab-olive walls, a little boy is seated on a high, rush-bottomed stool. He has one hand in the pocket of his greenish suit and another up to his mouth, looking meanwhile out of the edge of his eye, half rebelliously, half shyly. With the naïveté of the figure a picturesqueness of composition is united through the accessories introduced. On the wall to the right hang a gray and a blue military cloak and alongside them a brown one; while on the opposite wall is a bunch of accoutrements. An open book lies upon the floor."

Provenance

Henry Gurdon Marquand, New York, by 1871

[American Art Association, New York, January 23, 1903, The Henry G. Marquand Collection, no. 58 (as The Dull Scholar)]

A. F. Eno, January 23, 1903 (by purchase)

Present whereabouts unknown

Exhibitions

1870 Century Association

Century Association, New York, January 10, 1870, [possibly, as Boy in a Corner].

1871b Century Association

Century Association, New York, April 6, 1871, no. 22, as Sulky Boy at School, owner H. G. Marquand.

1873b NAD

National Academy of Design, New York, April 15–June 7, 1873. (Exhibition catalogue: NAD 1873), no. 203, [possibly, as The Sulky Boy].

References

NAD 1873

New York: National Academy of Design, 1873. Exhibition catalogue (1873b NAD), no. 203 [possibly, as The Sulky Boy].

The Aldine 1873

"Art: Annual Exhibition of N. A. of Design." The Aldine 6 (June 1873), p. 127 [possibly: "The South Room detains us longest. It contains the best figure pieces in the Exhibition, which are Eastman Johnson's 'Sulky Boy,' and 'Catching the Bee,' and 'The Yankee Pedlar,' by T. W. Wood…," as Sulky Boy].

AAA 1903a

Illustrated Catalogue of the Art and Literary Property Collected by the Late Henry G. Marquand. New York: American Art Association, January 1903. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 58, as The Dull Scholar.

Record last updated July 16, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.

Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Sulky Boy at School, 1861 (Hills no. 20.1.4)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1291 (accessed on May 6, 2024).