Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 2020
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14.0 Lily Pond Scenes
Johnson did few landscapes. Of those he did, he seems to have never sent them out on exhibition. Some of them are intimate views of his trips into nature, with sunlight falling on paths that lead through woodland trees or a haze on quiet lakes. None of them are dramatic views of mountains or rivers. He made several of the villages of Nantucket. Some seem to be instances where he painted the backyards of friends or family with a focus on the compositions of angles of planks, stairs, and siding. —PH
Hills no. 14.0.5
1907 Sale no. 134
The Early Lovers
Alternate title: Early Lovers
c.1865–73
Oil on board
22 x 27 1/2 in. (55.9 x 69.8 cm)
Initialed lower left: E.J.; verso: The Early Lovers.
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Description/Remarks
Hills, 2022: Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.
1907 Estate Sale 
No. 134: "A young farmer, who is evidently on his way to work, for he is standing on a rock in the foreground leaning on a hoe, converses with his sweetheart, who, her bare arms folded, stands near a spring under rocks overhung by trees, neglecting for a moment her task of cooling the milk in the pool. In the foreground a stream rushes over the rocks and falls into a narrow gully, on the opposite sides of which the two lovers stand. In the upper corner of the picture is suggested a bit of sunny sky, with the roof of a farmhouse."
"Signed at the lower left, E. J.
Height, 22 inches; length, 27 ½ inches."
[Annotation: “50.00”]
"Signed at the lower left, E. J.
Height, 22 inches; length, 27 ½ inches."
[Annotation: “50.00”]
Provenance
Private collection, January 26, 1980 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as Early Lovers.
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, A Nation's Legacy: 150 Years of American Art from Ohio Collections, January 19–March 15, 1992. Traveled to: Isetan Museum, Tokyo, April 9–May 5, 1992; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, Yamaguchi City, Japan, May 12–June 21, 1992; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukuskima, Japan, June 27–August 2, 1992; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Takamatsu, Japan, August 7–September 6, 1992; Daimaru Museum Umeda, Osaka, Japan, September 23–October 5, 1992.
References
Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 134, as The Early Lovers.
Evans, Bruce. "Eastman Johnson's Early Lovers." Dayton Medicine 41, no. 5 (May 1985), p. 159.
Selected Works from the Dayton Art Institute Permanent Collection. Dayton, OH: Dayton Art Institute, 1999, p. 56, as The Early Lovers.
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Record last updated April 7, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Early Lovers, c.1865–73 (Hills no. 14.0.5)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=169 (accessed on May 1, 2025).