Catalogue Entry
Like many artists in the nineteenth century, Johnson often did paintings of “types” that are actually identifiable portraits. For example, the painting John F. Sylvia shows a Nantucket miller in his barn looking up from his account books to look out the window. Called at one time The Falling Market, the subject suggests a man perhaps assessing his position in the economy in the early years of the 1870s when a recession gripped the nation. —PH
"Fine Arts: Exhibition at the Academy of Design," The New York Times, December 16, 1875: "Among the more striking paintings are Eastman Johnson's 'Old Captain,' an ancient mariner, with seamed and weatherbeaten face, who is enjoying through his telescope, a view of the ocean, and, perhaps, of some struggling bark that is vainly endeavoring to gain shelter from the storm. All that, however, is left to the imagination, for the artist has given us the old man and his telescope alone. The face is well molded and solidly painted; there is texture in the skin, as well as in the old fellow's rude habiliments. The touch is free and masterly, and reminds us of what Mr. Johnson used to do in times past."
Charles C. Myrick (1797–1883). Captain of the Nantucket coastal trading ship Abel Hoyt, 1854.
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