Catalogue Entry
In addition to his scenes of everyday life and portraits of people, Johnson created images of historical events and figures from works of literature, drama, and music. For example, “Carry Me, and I’ll Drum You Through” was inspired by an incident from the Battle of Antietam, 1862, and Membership Vote at the Union League Club, May 11, 1876, recorded a contentious meeting in which he participated much later. His Marguerite, Cosette, and Minnehaha are personifications of fictional heroines from novels and poetry. His Boy Lincoln represents both the future United States president and the archetypical American youth who, with determination and hard work, could succeed. Johnson rendered several of these imaginative images as both paintings and drawings. These literary and historical works evince both his personal interest in those subjects and his awareness of their popularity with the broad public. —AM
MacGibeny, 2022: The existence of this drawing is derived from the engraving A Pensive Nun, which illustrated Milton's poem "Il Penseroso" ["The Thoughtful Person"] in Frederick Saunders, A Festival of Song: A Series of Evenings with the Greatest Poets of the English Language. Illustrated with Seventy-Three Original Pictures by Members of the National Academy of Design, first published in 1866. See the linked image of the engraving for the likeness of the drawing. Between 1875 and 1880, Johnson depicted the poet himself in several versions of Milton Dictating Paradise Lost to His Daughters.
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