Catalogue Entry
When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.
He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH
MacGibeny, 2021: This large, full-length portrait of John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn was owned by the New York State Library in Albany, of which Pruyn was a benefactor. In March 1911 the New York State Capitol building, in which the Library was housed, experienced a devastating fire and this portrait was lost. Also lost in the fire was Johnson's portrait of John Jay.
The portrait of Pruyn is likely to be shown in the linked stereoview of the New York State Senate Chamber, taken before the fire. In April 1911, the New York Evening Post reported that a small sketch for the original portrait, owned by Pruyn's son-in-law William Gorham Rice, Jr., would be used to make a new copy. The large painting shown in the stereoview shares the same composition as the small sketch.
John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn (June 22, 1811–November 21, 1877). U.S. Representative from New York and Chancellor of the University of the State of New York Board of Regents, 1868–1877.
- Portrait pose:
- Posthumous:
MacGibeny, 2021: Johnson's original large portrait of John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn perished in a fire in the New York State Capitol building in 1911. This copy by George Hughes was made sometime during the next five years. In the month after the fire, the New York Evening Post reported that a small sketch for the original portrait, then in possession of Pruyn's family, would be used to make a copy. According to the Albany Times Union in March 1916, the copy had been hung in the Regents Room of the New York State Education Building.
See all Period Portrait Copies by Other Artists after Johnson.