When Johnson returned from Europe late in 1855 and moved in with his family in Washington, D.C., he began receiving portrait commissions. Like those done earlier, Johnson generally used charcoal (named in some records as black chalk) with touches of white and created a strong chiaroscuro for his sitters. Gradually he moved away from the strong chiaroscuro style he had been using, and his later portraits tend to be sketchier (as was the taste in art at the time) but no less professional. He used pastel to bring in color in some of these portraits. —PH
MacGibeny, 2022: The magazine article in which this drawing was reproduced has not yet been found. A letter dated November 15, 1940 from Lester Mitchell Folger, grandson of the sitter, to Everett Crosby, author of Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes, 1944, suggests that the composition of the drawing would have been similar to that of the painted portrait of Peter Folger owned by Crosby:
"Peter Folger did not pose for this portrait in the oil, the painting being done in 1886, whereas Peter Folger died in 1883. What really happened was that in 1882, a year before his death, my grandfather Peter Folger posed for a pen and ink sketch for Eastman Johnson which was photographed later for a magazine article which referred to the portrait and which I now have. I have a clipping from a magazine showing the portrait you now have on the reverse side of which is a portion of the article featuring the name of Eastman Johnson and the name of the picture. I do not know what became of the original pen and ink sketch nor do I know what magazine contained the article I refer to as only a part of the article was saved. This article and photographic reproduction came to me from my aunt Elma Folger the teacher who professed not to know the whereabouts of your painting except that it was off Island."
- Portrait pose: