Catalogue Entry

No. 113: "Seated in an old-fashioned rocking-chair, his feet upon the hearth of an air-tight stove, is a small lad who, having put aside his mittens, is endeavoring to warm his stiffened fingers. His duty has evidently been to light the fire in the school-room, for behind the stove is the simple wooden desk of the master, and on the right the seats and desks of the pupils. Split birch logs are lying on the floor near the stove, and on the bench behind the boy are his two school books and underneath it his tin dinner pail."
"Signed at the lower left, E. J., 1868.
Height, 17 inches; length, 21 inches."
[Annotation: “170.00 / W. J. Curtis”]

Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)

[The artist's estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 26–27, 1907, no. 113 (as The Early Scholar)]

W. J. Curtis, February 27, 1907 (by purchase)

Present whereabouts unknown

National Academy of Design, New York, April 15–June 20, 1868. (NAD 1868), no. 261, [possibly, as The Early Scholar].

New York: National Academy of Design, 1868. Exhibition catalogue (1868 NAD), no. 261 [possibly, as The Early Scholar].

"Fine Arts: Academy of Design." The Albion (New York) 46, no. 20 (May 16, 1868), p. 273 [possibly, as The Early Scholar].

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. 113, as The Early Scholar.

"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907), p. 3, as The Early Scholar.

Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In Eastman Johnson: Painting America, by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue, p. 261 [possibly, as The Early Scholar].