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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

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[ 31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men ]info
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31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men

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

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Hills no. 31.1.79
Charles James Folger
Alternate titles: Hon. Charles J. Folger; Judge Folger
c.1884
Oil on canvas
[dimensions unknown]
Present whereabouts unknown
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021: This may be a posthumous portrait.

Provenance
New York State Court of Appeals, Albany, New York, c. 1884 (by commission)
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1884a Century Association
Century Association, New York, January 12, 1884, as Judge Folger.
1884 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, April 7–May 17, 1884. (NAD 1884), no. 70, as Hon. Charles J. Folger.
References
Art Union 1884
"The National Academy Exhibition." The Art Union 1, no. 4 (April 1884), p. 78.
NAD 1884
New York: National Academy of Design, 1884. Exhibition catalogue (1884 NAD), no. 70, as Hon. Charles J. Folger.
Philadelphia Inquirer 1884a
"National Academy: The Fifty-Ninth Annual Picture Fair." The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 5, 1884, p. 7: "The place of honor, at the head of the north gallery, is given to a life size, three-quarter length portrait, a noble and characteristic work, by Eastman Johnson."
Philadelphia Inquirer 1884b
"Portrait of Secretary Folger." The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 25, 1884, p. 4: "The Acting Secretary of the Treasury has purchased an oil painting of the Hon. Charles J. Folger, the late Secretary of the Treasury, by Mr. Eastman Johnson of New York. It is a companion piece of the portrait painted by him for the Court of Appeals of New York, and placed on exhibition at the Academy of Design."
Browne 1889
Browne, Irving. The Albany Law Journal: A Weekly Record of the Law and the Lawyers. Volume XXXVIII. From July 1888 to January 1889. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Company, 1889, July 14, 1888, p. 22, Current Topics [possibly:] "The portrait of Mr. Field [in the corridor adjoining the court of appeals' chamber at the capitol] is a strong and faithful piece of work by Mr. Robert Gordon Bardie, a promising young artist of New York. In our judgment it is the most meritorious of the entire collection, except that of Judge Folger, by Eastman Johnson…What a list of strong intellects or great lawyers this collection now exhibits!"
Douglass 1999
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. 263.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Folger, Charles James
Biography:

Charles James Folger (1818–1884). Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under President Chester Alan Arthur, appointed 1881. Presided over the largest surplus the government had ever had, and devised plans for how to deal with it [Treasury.gov].

Folger, Charles James
Keywords
Record last updated July 14, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Charles James Folger, c.1884 (Hills no. 31.1.79)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1338 (accessed on May 2, 2024).