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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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© 2003 Christie’s Images Limited
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20.1 Boys Indoors
Young boys have been a traditional staples of genre painting. To patrons of art during the mid-nineteenth century these youths recalled memories of their own growing years in which innocence was becoming more and more modified by mischievous cunning. —PH
Hills no. 20.1.13
Baur no. 138
Solitaire
Alternate titles: Boy on a Stool; Little Boy on a Stool; Little Boy on Stool
1867
Oil on canvas laid down on new canvas
8 5/8 x 6 5/8 in. (21.9 x 16.8 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right: E. J./67.
Description / Remarks
Hills opinion letter, 2002: "The painting takes as its subject a quiet moment when a young boy, seated on a high chair, focuses on the porridge he is eating."
Provenance
Henry S. Gillette, by 1940
Private collection
Graham Gallery, New York, early 1970s
Private Southern collection, c. 1980
Spink-Leger Gallery, London
With Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, by May 2002
[Christie's, December 4, 2003, lot 24 (as Little Boy on a Stool)]
Unidentified dealer
Charles and Nancy Geschke, Los Altos, California, by 2012
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1889 Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, First Annual Exhibition of American Paintings, May 30–June 30, 1889, no. 101, as Solitaire.2011 Nantucket Historical Association
Nantucket Historical Association, Whitney Gallery at the Fair Street Research Library, Nantucket, Massachusetts, Eastman Johnson and His Contemporaries, Spring 2011–Fall 2012, as Solitaire.References
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), p. 66, no. 138, as Solitaire.Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 2002-05-22 at Hollis Taggart
Examination notes: Dark on left—light on right. Figure centered. Nice touch: top bar where footrest would be is absent; therefore, his legs are up. Fingers nicely articulated.
Record last updated July 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. "Solitaire, 1867 (Hills no. 20.1.13)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=242 (accessed on May 7, 2024).