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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: Courtesy of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.
[ 13.6 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—In the Woods ]info
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13.6 Maple Sugar Camps, 1860s—In the Woods

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. 13.6.11
Baur no. 46 / 1907 Sale no. 94
The Sap Gatherers
Alternate title: Gathering Sap
c.1873
Locale: Near Fryeburg, Maine
Oil on paper mounted on board
13 5/8 x 16 5/8 in. (34.6 x 42.2 cm)
Initialed lower left: E.J.
Present whereabouts unknown
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2021: This painting is a kind of collaboration between Johnson and fellow artist Jervis McEntee. McEntee wrote in his diary entry of Tuesday, April 22, 1873, "Thursday I spent at Eastman Johnson's studio painting on the foreground of his 'Sap Gatherers.' It was a dismal rainy day, the room got cold and I took cold. We had a delightful day together however and I think enjoyed ourselves much better than if we had gone to John Taylor Johnston's.” John Taylor Johnston was a wealthy art collector.

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 94: "Two boys are on their rounds to gather sap from the maple trees. One of them is pouring the contents of a birch bark receptacle into the barrel which they are carrying on a sled, and the other is drinking out of a similar receptacle, holding it to his mouth with both hands, gathering it that way. Beyond the bole of a large maple tree, on either side of which the two boys stand, is a dense forest with patches of snow under the trees."
"Signed at the lower left, E. J.
Height, 14 inches; length, 17 inches."
[Annotation: “27.50 / Cogswell”]
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. 94 (as The Sap Gatherers)]
William Browne Cogswell, Syracuse, New York, husband of the artist's niece, Mary Naomi Johnson Cogswell (daughter of the artist's brother Reuben), February 27, 1907 (by purchase)
Cora Browning Cogswell, his wife, 1921 (by bequest)
Florence Pearl and Elizabeth C. Browning, her sisters, Syracuse, New York, 1936 (by bequest)
Douthitt Galleries, New York, 1940
John Levy Galleries, New York, 1944
[Plaza Art Galleries, Inc., New York, February 1, 1945, Oil Paintings of Various Schools from the Collection of Mrs. George Tiffany and Other Sources, no. 27 (as The Sap Gatherers)]
Vose Galleries, Boston, by 1981
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1982–1984
William Poplack, Michigan
Owen Gallery, New York, until 1999
Private collection, New Jersey, 1999 (by purchase)
Private collection, by 2004 [may be same as previous]
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as The Sap Gatherers.
1940 Douthitt Gallery
The Douthitt Gallery, New York, Eastman Johnson: The Keystone Artist, March 28–April 30, 1940. (Douthitt Gallery 1940), no. 8, as The Sap Gatherers.
1942 John Levy Galleries
John Levy Galleries, New York, Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, April 8–30, 1942. (John Levy Galleries 1942), no. 8, as The Sap Gatherers.
1944a John Levy Galleries
John Levy Galleries, New York, America in the 19th Century: Its People, Pleasures, and Pursuits, May 16–June 9, 1944. (John Levy Galleries 1944), no. 7, as The Sap Gatherers.
1982 Hirschl & Adler
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, Lines of Different Character: American Art from 1727 to 1947, November 13, 1982–January 8, 1983, no. 21, as The Sap Gatherers.
2004 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, Sugaring Off: The Maple Sugar Paintings of Eastman Johnson, January 18–April 18, 2004. (Allen 2004a), as The Sap Gatherers. Traveled to: Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, May 11–August 1, 2004.
References
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. 94, as The Sap Gatherers.
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. 46, as The Sap Gatherers.
John Levy Galleries 1942
Exhibition of Eastman Johnson. New York: John Levy Galleries, 1942. Exhibition catalogue (1942 John Levy Galleries), n.p. (2), no. 8, as The Sap Gatherers.
Art Digest 1944
The Art Digest 18, no. 16 (June 1, 1944), illus.
Browning 1944
Browning, Margaret. "With Native Flavor." The Art Digest 18, no. 16 (June 1, 1944), p. 11.
John Levy Galleries 1944
America in the 19th Century: Its People, Pleasures, and Pursuits. New York: John Levy Galleries, 1944. Exhibition catalogue (1944a John Levy Galleries), n.p., no. 7, as The Sap Gatherers.
Plaza Art Galleries 1945a
Oil Paintings of Various Schools from the Collection of Mrs. George Tiffany and Other Sources. New York: Plaza Art Galleries, February 1, 1945. Sale catalogue, p. 13, no. 27 illus., as The Sap Gatherers.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries 1982
Lines of Different Character: American Art from 1727 to 1947. New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1982, p. 35, no. 21 illus.
Mass Humanities 2003
"Newsletter." Mass Humanities, Fall 2003, p. 2.
Allen 2004a
Allen, Brian T. Sugaring Off: The Maple Sugar Paintings of Eastman Johnson. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, in association with the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2004. Exhibition catalogue (2004 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute), as The Sap Gatherers.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1981-10-15
Hills opinion letter: November 10, 1981 view »
Keywords
Record last updated May 27, 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 Sap Gatherers, c.1873 (Hills no. 13.6.11)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=195 (accessed on April 16, 2024).