Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné

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

Catalogue Entry

enlarge

Photo: Patricia Hills

Detail

Photo: Patricia Hills

[ 37.1 U.S. Early and Euro Figure & Landscape Sketches ]

⊠

37.1 U.S. Early and Euro Figure & Landscape Sketches

Johnson finished his formal schooling at fifteen and worked in a dry goods store where he began making drawings. Responding to his talent, his father sent him to work in a lithography shop in Boston, probably Bufford’s. Several figure and landscape sketches survive from the early 1840s which indicate the ways he was exploring the human figure and the landscape about him using graphite pencil. More importantly, he began to excel as a portrait draughtsman in these early years; see Themes 43.1–.9, U.S. Early Portrait Drawings.

Johnson's reason for his sojourn in Düsseldorf and The Hague, 1849–1855, was to learn to paint with oil (see Themes 1.0–5.0). To achieve that goal, he studied anatomy while still making graphite sketches of interiors, landscapes, and figures from life. Among his best composed sketches were those done on trips to the Dutch countryside, especially those done at Dongen, the Netherlands. —PH

View all works in this theme »

Hills no. 37.1.23v

Man Seated at Table and Perspective Studies [verso of Study of an Oriental Man]

c.1851–55

Locale: The Netherlands

Graphite pencil on paper

15 x 21 1/4 in. (38.1 x 54 cm)

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, bequest of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Watercolors and Drawings, 1800–1875 (1971.380)

Recto: Oriental man, c.1849–52 (Hills no. 37.1.22r)

Provenance

Likely Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)

Likely Albert Rosenthal, New Hope, Pennsylvania, until 1939 (likely by purchase from Mrs. Johnson in 1915)

Likely Estate of Albert Rosenthal, with Albert Duveen, New York

Albert Duveen, New York, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York, February 8, 1946

Maxim Karolik, until 1963

Estate of Maxim Karolik, 1963–November 10, 1971

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, November 10, 1971 (by bequest)

Hills Examination / Opinion

Examination date(s): 2018-03-07

Record last updated March 1, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.

Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Man Seated at Table and Perspective Studies [verso of Study of an Oriental Man], c.1851–55 (Hills no. 37.1.23v)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1357 (accessed on May 4, 2024).