Catalogue Entry
Works in the Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné are organized into themes based on medium, locale (United States or Europe), and subject matter. Portraits made in the United States are further categorized by when Johnson made them: early (before he went to Europe in 1849) and late (after he returned to the United States in 1855). Uncategorized paintings are paintings for which all of these details are unknown. Either the subject matter indicated by the title is ambiguous (for example, “An Arrangement in Black and White”) or the subject matter is clear (for example, A Boy in a Torn Straw Hat), but it is unknown when and/or where Johnson made the work. In some cases it is not even certain but deduced from the available information that the works are paintings rather than drawings. Future research may enable the works in this theme to be identified more specifically.
There are also paintings in our research records that are not categorized and included in the catalogue raisonné, because they have not been proven to be unique works. They may be the same as paintings already included in the EJCR with different titles. In those cases, we add information from the not-included work (title, provenance, etc.) to the entry for the included work as “possibly.” We will add catalogue entries for those works in the future if research proves them to be unique. —AM
MacGibeny, 2021: In 1861, the year when this painting was exhibited, Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language defined "foxy" (as it had since 1847 or 1848) as "an epithet applied to paintings, when the shadows and lower tones have too much of a yellowish, reddish-brown color." By 1868, the definition had lost its critical implication and was phrased more neutrally as "of a yellowish or reddish-brown color." "Foxy" may refer to the colors of this painting in some way. However, it also seems possible that the title could have referred to a break in the weather, as it did in several later literary sources published in London, including A Sea-Painter’s Log, Robert Charles Leslie, 1886: "'Foxy days' are so called by sailors and fishermen because, coming between whiles in stormy times or just before a gale, these warm days of calm are thought to be 'weather breeders'…Late in October, after a perfectly calm night, a 'foxy day' opens over the broad roadstead with the morning sun in grey mist."