Johnson went to Europe in 1849 to learn techniques for creating figure paintings in oil. However, he had been a professional portrait draughtsman in Boston and Washington, D.C. for at least five years before that. In those early drawings he had a keen sense of creating heads using light tones and shadowed areas to create a strong three-dimensional effect. Studying the works of Rembrandt at The Hague inspired him to use the same techniques for his oil portraits. —PH
MacGibeny, 2021: Photographs of this portrait and two others were donated to the Archives of American Art by C. J. F. Thieme, great-grandson of the subjects of the portraits, and A. C. Thieme, granddaughter of the subjects. The original letter from the latter in the Archives of American Art specifies that the sitters are her grandparents. Her grandfather, Johann Adrian Friederich Thieme, found a drawing of himself in Johnson's sketchbook, which was sitting on the mantle of a hotel in The Hague where both were staying in 1852. Johnson told Thieme that the sketches in the sketchbook were heads intended for a monumental painting of the crossing of the Delaware. Thieme purchased the drawing of himself and commissioned portraits of both himself and his wife.
Johnson did paint a smaller copy of Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware to be used for an engraving. His reported comment about sketching heads for a monumental version suggests he may have considered painting an original composition.
Johann Adrian Friederich Thieme (Wezel, Germany 1803–1879 Amsterdam). Merchant in Rotterdam. Married Alida Elisabeth Lothz Thieme (1807–1888; m. 1836).
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