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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

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Photo: Courtesy of the RISD Museum, Providence, RI
[ 13.4 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—Panoramic Scenes ]info
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13.4 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—Panoramic Scenes

The making of maple sugar was a traditional industry for Maine people, as it still is today. Johnson specifically traveled to Maine, his birthplace, in the early spring of the early 1860s to study and watch farmers as they tapped the trees, gathered sap, and then set up camps to boil the sap down to thick, sweet maple syrup. As scholar Brian Allen has pointed out, during the Civil War years, maple syrup was a patriotic alternative to the sugar cane sugar of Southern plantations [See Allen 2004]. Allen quotes the Philadelphia physician and abolitionist Benjamin Rush, who said in 1792: “I cannot help contemplating a maple sugar tree without a species of veneration, for I behold in it a happy means of rendering commerce and slavery of African brethren in sugar islands as unnecessary” [See Allen 2004, p. 47].

The camps became hubs of dancing, flirting, and jocular humor, and included children mingling with adults. Although Johnson worked on making sketches for years, he never completed a finished version of the “larger & more pretenscious [sic] sugaring picture” that he wrote to patron John Coyle he had planned to make. —PH

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Hills no. 13.4.8
Baur no. 49 / 1907 Sale no. 150
Sugaring Off
Alternate titles: Sugaring Off (No. 1–Unfinished); Sugaring Off (Unfinished)
c.1864–65
Locale: Near Fryeburg, Maine
Oil on canvas
52 3/4 x 96 1/2 in. (134 x 245.1 cm)
Initialed lower right in red: E.J.; lower left in pencil: unfinished
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Museum Works of Art Fund (45.050)
Description / Remarks

Kende Galleries sale catalogue, January 7, 1943: "Depicting people gathered in the forest about a maple sugar kettle. The ground is covered with snow, at the right is the kettle over a fire and a man stirring it."

Hills, 2021: The evidence for the date range of 1864–65 is a letter from Johnson to patron John Coyle dated March 13, 1864. Johnson states that he plans to do a "larger & more pretenscious" [sic] sugaring picture and is "starting for the country to make studies for a month or six weeks"; that this is his fourth annual trip to Maine to do so; and that he "hope[s] to paint it next autumn & winter."

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 150: "This, the longest study for the picture entitled 'Sugaring Off,' differs in many details from the other studies made preparatory to the execution of the large composition. The incident of giving the baby a taste of the sugar is shown in the middle foreground; there is a larger crowd around the steaming kettle; the fiddler on the woodpile is nearer the centre of the picture, and there is a wider vista into the snowy landscape beyond. The flirtation on the snowbank is made use of as an interesting event in the festivity, and the man taking a sly drink is a prominent touch of humor in the scene."
"Signed at the lower right, E. J.
Height, 44 1/2 inches; length, 89 inches"
[Annotation: “180.00 / Cogswell”]
Provenance
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. 150 (as Sugaring Off)]
William Browne Cogswell, Syracuse, New York, husband of the artist's niece, Mary Naomi Johnson Cogswell (daughter of the artist's brother Reuben), February 27, 1907 (by purchase)
Cora Browning Cogswell, his wife, 1921 (by bequest)
Florence Pearl and Elizabeth C. Browning, Syracuse, New York, 1936 (by bequest)
[Kende Galleries, New York, January 7, 1943, Paintings: American, English and European Schools from the Collection of the Late Leon Hirsch, Property of Mrs. Frederic J. Merrick, lot 118 (as Sugaring Off)]
Curt Valentin Gallery, New York, by 1943 and until 1945
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1945 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1939 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, January 18, 1939–February 26, 1940. (Exhibition catalogue: Baur 1940), no. 49, b/w illus., Pl. XIV, as Sugaring Off (No. 1–Unfinished).
1940 Douthitt Gallery
The Douthitt Gallery, New York, Eastman Johnson: The Keystone Artist, March 28–April 30, 1940. (Douthitt Gallery 1940), no. 1, as Sugaring Off (No. 1–Unfinished).
1943 Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Romantic Painting in America, November 17, 1943–February 6, 1944. (Exhibition catalogue: Soby and Miller 1943), no. 118, as Sugaring Off (Unfinished), lent by Curt Valentin.
1967 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, The Painter and the New World, June 9–July 30, 1967. (Exhibition catalogue: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1967), no. 261, illus., as Sugaring Off.
1972 Whitney Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 38, b/w illus., p. 66, as Sugaring Off. Traveled to: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, June 7–July 22, 1972; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, August 15–September 30, 1972; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, October 20–December 3, 1972.
2013 RISD Museum
RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, Making It in America: Decorative Arts and Painting and Sculpture, October 11, 2013–February 9, 2014, as Sugaring Off.
References
Johnson, Eastman 1864b
Eastman Johnson letter to John Coyle, March 13, 1864, Johnson states that he plans to do a "larger & more pretenscious [sic]" sugaring picture and is "starting for the country to make studies for a month or six weeks"; that this is his fourth annual trip to Maine to do so; and that he "hope[s] to paint it next autumn & winter," quoted in Selection of Artist’s Letters 1999.
Walton 1906
Walton, William. "Eastman Johnson, Painter." Scribner's Magazine 40 (September 1906), p. 270.
AAA 1907b
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. 150, as Sugaring Off.
American Art News 1907b
"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907).
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), no. 49, Pl. XIV, as Sugaring Off (No. 1–Unfinished).
Kende Galleries 1943
Paintings: American, English and European Schools from the Collection of the Late Leon Hirsch, Property of Mrs. Frederic J. Merrick, and from Other Sources. New York: Kende Galleries, January 7, 1943. Sale catalogue, p. 18, no. 21, as Sugaring Off, "Signed at the lower right, E. J. Canvas: 52 x 96 inches. Unfinished canvas used as a study for several works."
Soby and Miller 1943
Soby, James Thrall, and Dorothy C. Miller. Romantic Painting in America. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1943. Exhibition catalogue (1943 Museum of Modern Art), no. 118, p. 137, as Sugaring Off (Unfinished).
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1967
The Painter and the New World. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1967. Exhibition catalogue (1967 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), no. 261.
Ames 1969/1970
Ames, Kenneth. "Eastman Johnson: The Failure of a Successful Artist." Art Journal 29, no. 2 (Winter 1969/1970), pp. 174–83; p. 176 illus.
Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), no. 38, p. 66 illus., as Sugaring Off, owner Rhode Island School of Design.
Mandel 1977a
Mandel, Patricia. Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Selection VII: American Paintings from the Museum's Collection, c. 1800–1930. Providence, RI: Rhode Island School of Design, 1977, no. 73, pp. 158–63.
Stebbins 1983
Stebbins, Theodore E. A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting, 1760-1910. Boston, Mass.: Museum of Fine Arts, 1983. Exhibition catalogue (1983 MFA Boston), p. 23, illus., as Sugaring Off.
Selection of Artist's Letters 1999
"A Selection of the Artist's Letters." 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.
Keywords
Record last updated November 26, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Sugaring Off, c.1864–65 (Hills no. 13.4.8)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=177 (accessed on April 18, 2024).