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

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Maryland State Archives
The Down East Courtship, c.1861–65 (Hills no. 13.5.3). Inscription
Inscription
[ 13.5 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—Small Scenes ]info
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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

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Hills no. 13.5.3
Baur no. 42a / 1907 Sale no. 88
The Down East Courtship
State of Maryland (Collection of the Maryland State Archives) title: Down East Courtship
Alternate titles: possibly The Country Courtship; possibly The Courtship; The Down East Wooing
c.1861–65
Locale: Near Fryeburg, Maine
Oil on composition board
15 x 12 1/2 in. (38.1 x 31.8 cm)
Initialed lower left in bright red paint: E.J.
Collection of the Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland (MSA SC 4680-10-0221)
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."

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 88: "In a sugar camp, seated in the snow, is a young woman in winter dress listening to the soft words of her lover, who is close beside her, resting his head upon his left hand and gazing at her with an ardent expression, while she slyly turns her eyes away. She wears a dark, broad-brimmed hat tied under the chin by a blue ribbon, a dull terra cotta colored shawl with a red border, a brown skirt, and a yellow and blue muffler is tied around her throat. In the background is seen part of the maple grove and a hogshead half buried in the snow."
"Signed at the lower left, E. J.
Height, 15 inches; width, 12 inches"
[Annotation: “35.00”]
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. 88 (as The Down East Courtship)]
William F. Laporte, by 1940
[Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 1944, no. 550]
Wildenstein and Company, New York, 1947
Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1947–1996 (by purchase)
State of Maryland (Collection of the Maryland State Archives), Maryland, 1996 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as The Down East Wooing.
1937 Frazier Gallery
Frazier Gallery, New York, Eastman Johnson 1824–1906: Forerunner of Homer and Eakins, September–October 1937. (Hirschl 1937); (Frazier Gallery 1937a), no. 3, [possibly, as The Courtship, on board, 13 1/2 x 15 3/4, Monogrammed E.J. Lower L].
1939 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, January 18, 1939–February 26, 1940. (Exhibition catalogue: Baur 1940), no. 42a, as The Down East Courtship.
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.
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. 88, as The Down East Courtship.
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 12, addendum “Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as The Country Courtship].
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), no. 42a, as The Down East Courtship.
Dun's Review 1949
Dun's Review (New York) (February 1949).
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.
Keywords
Record last updated November 26, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Down East Courtship, c.1861–65 (Hills no. 13.5.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=189 (accessed on April 26, 2024).