In the late eighteenth century the “fancy” figure developed as a genre of painting. These figures were meant to be picturesque renderings of children, such as girls selling flowers, boys engaged in chores, or old men whose physiognomy suggests either their faith or their defiance of death. Often such pictures had a moralizing undercurrent. Johnson did a few such figures, sometimes European figures dressed in quaint local costumes but in keeping with his times he moved toward realism. —PH
Hills, 2021: This figure may have been painted in Europe or the United States. From the 1907 Estate Sale catalogue description it is not known what instrument he may have used.
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.
"Signed at the lower left, E. Johnson.
Height, 28 inches; width, 23 ½ inches."
[Annotation: “105.00 / F. W. White"]