When Johnson returned from Europe late in 1855 and moved in with his family in Washington, D.C., he began receiving portrait commissions. On his trip to Superior, Michigan, in 1856 and 1857, he did charcoal portrait drawings of family and friends. Like the commissioned drawings done earlier, Johnson generally used charcoal (named in some records as black chalk) with touches of white, but the strong chiaroscuro is less evident for his women sitters. Many of these portraits are in pastel, which creates a softer visage. In his later professional years as a painter of oil portraits there are few portraits of women. His art commanded high prices; perhaps families were then reluctant to include their women members as portrait sitters. —PH
MacGibeny, 2022: Although this portrait was offered at auction with the title Julia May Appleton, the sitter appears to be Julia's daughter Mary Elizabeth Appleton Hoyt, based on visual comparison to period portrait drawings of both women and the two other oil portraits of Mary by Johnson.
Mary Elizabeth Appleton Hoyt (1860–1927). Daughter of Daniel Fuller Appleton and Julia May Randall Appleton; wife of Gerald Livingston Hoyt.
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