Catalogue Entry
When Johnson returned from Europe late in 1855 and moved in with his family in Washington, D.C., he began receiving portrait commissions. On his trip to Superior, Michigan, in 1856 and 1857, he did charcoal portrait drawings of family and friends. Like the commissioned drawings done earlier, Johnson generally used charcoal (named in some records as black chalk) with touches of white, but the strong chiaroscuro is less evident for his women sitters. Many of these portraits are in pastel, which creates a softer visage. In his later professional years as a painter of oil portraits there are few portraits of women. His art commanded high prices; perhaps families were then reluctant to include their women members as portrait sitters. —PH
MacGibeny, 2022: Scott Nielsen, a Johnson family descendant by marriage, writes that the subject of this drawing is "68 year old Susan Dolby Alexander, aka 'Cousin Susan,' the mother of Caroline Alexander Johnson (Reuben [Johnson]'s wife), and the first cousin of my great great great grandfather Samuel Dolby. She had come with her daughter and two sons [to] Superior, the Eastman sketch is dated October 22, 1857 and was likely done at the conclusion of Eastman's second visit to Superior. She owned a quarter interest in the Detroit Pier sawmill and in that way was a business partner of Eastman's after 1859." It is possible that the image here representing the original drawing is a photograph of a reproduction of the drawing, rather than a photograph of the original drawing.
A related portrait drawing of a very similar-looking but much younger woman may be one of Susan Dolby Alexander's daughters, Elizabeth or Caroline; she may even be a younger Mrs. Alexander herself.
Susan Dolby Alexander (1789–1866). Mother of Caroline Alexander Johnson (Eastman Johnson’s brother Reuben's wife); wife of Samuel Alexander; first cousin of Samuel Dolby. Owned a quarter interest in the Detroit Pier Sawmill and a business partner of Johnson’s after 1859 [Scott Nielsen, Johnson family descendant by marriage].
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