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

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Photo: Reynolda House Museum of American Art
[ 13.5 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—Small Scenes ]info
⊠
13.5 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—Small 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

View all works in this theme »

Hills no. 13.5.12
1907 Sale no. 124
The Story-Teller of the Camp
Reynolda House Museum of American Art title: The Storyteller of the Camp (Maple Sugar Camp)
Alternate titles: Maple Sugar Camp; Story Teller of the Camp; The Story Teller of the Camp; The Story Teller of the Camp (Maple Sugar Camp)
c.1861–65
Locale: Near Fryeburg, Maine
Oil on board
22 3/4 x 26 3/4 in. (57.8 x 67.9 cm)
Initialed lower left: E.J.
Original Purchase Fund from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, ARCA, and Anne Cannon Forsyth, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, affiliated with Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (1967.2.1)
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021: The evidence for the date range of 1861–65 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."

Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 124: "A large number of country folk have assembled in a sugar camp to celebrate the harvest of the forest. A cheery, middle-aged individual, both thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, is evidently relating a humorous tale to three women who seem very much amused at the story. Nearby, on the right, stands a little boy, his hands behind him, gazing with open mouth at the group, unable to understand the cause of the laughter. In the background are seen various groups of people, gossiping and enjoying the festival. The figures are in strong effect of sunlight from the upper left, and the costumes are of the period of the middle of last century."
"Signed at the lower left, E.J.
Height, 22 1/2 inches; length, 26 3/4 inches."
[Annotation: “140.00 / G. H. Hall”]
Markings
Verso: Maple Sugar Camp E. J.
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. 124 (as The Story-Teller of the Camp)]
George Henry Hall, February 27, 1907 (by purchase)
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1966–1967
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1967 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as The Story Teller of the Camp.
1971 Hirschl & Adler
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, Reynolda House American Paintings, January 13–31, 1971, no. 15.
1972 Whitney Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 34, b/w illus., p. 51, as The Story Teller of the Camp (Maple Sugar Camp), did not travel. 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.
1974 Meredith Long & Company
Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Tradition and Innovation: American Paintings 1860–1870 (A Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of The Houston Museum of Fine Arts), January 10–25, 1974. (Meredith Long & Company 1974), no. 23.
1981 Terra Museum of American Art
Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, Life in 19th Century America: An Exhibition of Genre Painting, September 11–November 15, 1981. (Terra Museum of American Art 1981), no. 53.
1999 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 30, p. 61, as The Story Teller of the Camp (Maple Sugar Camp). Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
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.
Library of Congress Copyright Office 1907
Library of Congress Copyright Office. Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 4: Engravings, Cuts, and Prints; Chromos and Lithographs; Photographs; Fine Arts; New Series. Volume 2, nos. 1–52, January–December, 1907. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1907, p. 223, no. 8045, as Story Teller of the Camp, copyright notice issued to Mrs. Eastman Johnson. "Yankee (A), his body thrown back, thumbs in his vest arm holes, seems to be telling some witty story. A small boy lost in admiration," Class I, no. 20706, Feb. 6, 1907. One photograph received February 6, 1907.
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. 124, as The Story-Teller of the Camp.
Art in America 1959
Art in America 47, no. 2 (Summer 1959).
Millhouse 1971
Millhouse, Barbara Babcock. Reynolda House: American Paintings. Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolda House, 1971, no. 15, pp. 32-33 illus.
Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), no. 34, p. 51 illus.
Meredith Long & Company 1974
Tradition and Innovation: American Paintings 1860–1870. Houston, TX: Meredith Long & Company, 1974. Exhibition catalogue (1974 Meredith Long & Company), p. 35, no. 23.
Terra Museum of American Art 1981
Life in 19th Century America. Evanston, IL: Terra Museum of American Art, 1981. Exhibition catalogue (1981 Terra Museum of American Art), no. 53, p. 28 illus.
Eldredge and Millhouse 1990
Eldredge, Charles C., and Barbara B. Millhouse. American Originals: Selections from Reynolda House. New York: Abbeville Press, 1990, illus.
Carbone and Hills 1999
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), p. 61, no. 30, as The Story Teller of the Camp (Maple Sugar Camp).
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.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1971-02
Keywords
Record last updated April 7, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Story-Teller of the Camp, c.1861–65 (Hills no. 13.5.12)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=183 (accessed on April 20, 2024).