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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

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. 31.1.26
Baur no. 159
John Caswell
c.1881–90
Oil on canvas
28 x 23 in. (71.1 x 58.4 cm)
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021: A copy of this Johnson portrait, made by Thomas Waterman Wood in 1890, shows John Caswell (1797–1881) at an age too young for Johnson to have portrayed him at the time. It is likely that Johnson's portrait was made posthumously from a much earlier photograph of Caswell.

Provenance
Howard Caswell Smith, grandson of the sitter, by 1940
Present whereabouts unknown
References
Wilson 1890
Wilson, George, ed. Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New-York: Catalogue and Biographical Sketches. New York: Press of the Chamber of Commerce, 1890, p. 13.
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 67, no. 159, as John Caswell.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Caswell, John
Biography:

John Caswell (1797–1871). Businessman engaged in the China trade.

Catalogue of Portraits in the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. New York: New York Chamber of Commerce, 1924.

Caswell, John
Keywords
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Photo: Reproduced in Catalogue of Portraits in the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, 1924
John Caswell [Thomas Waterman Wood after Johnson]
1890
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Neither signed nor dated
New York State Museum, Albany, New York (H-2003.41.100)

See all Period Portrait Copies by Other Artists after Johnson.

Record last updated September 20, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "John Caswell, c.1881–90 (Hills no. 31.1.26)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=1431 (accessed on March 29, 2024).