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 portrait of John Jay was owned by the New York State Library. In March 1911 the New York State Capitol building in Albany, in which the Library was housed, experienced a devastating fire and this portrait was lost. Given the location of the painting, the subject may have been John Jay (1745–1829), Governor of New York (1785–1801), and thus possibly a copy by Johnson after another artist; or it may have been his grandson and Johnson's contemporary John Jay (1817–1894), a lawyer, abolitionist, and president of the American Historical Association. Also lost in the State Capitol fire was Johnson's portrait of John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn.
John Jay (1817–1894). Lawyer, abolitionist, co-founder of Republican Party, diplomat to Austria-Hungary, 1869–1875; president of the American Historical Association, 1889–1890.
- Portrait pose:
- Posthumous: