Johnson’s daughter, Ethel, was born in May 1870, and it is not surprising that Johnson would use her (but not exclusively) as a model for the many pictures of young girls in interiors—playing with dolls, warming their hands by a stove, reading, sleeping. Such pictures often include the same furniture, such as the prie dieu (church prayer bench or kneeler) seen in Family Cares and The Tea Party. Because they were genre paintings, not portraits, Johnson freely renders the facial features. Thus, it is not surprising that for paintings done circa 1873, the bodily types of the girls look like three-year-olds; whereas those done circa 1878, look more like eight-years-olds. —PH
See Hills, in Hills and Carbone, 1999, p. 158. Quoting Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan 23, 1873, p. 3:
“Eastman Johnson contributes a cabinet interior entitled ‘Family Cares.’ A young girl is seated in a chair with her little flock of dolls around her. A big dolly engages her immediate attention, while others of less importance are scattered around on the floor. Some members of the family are fearfully dilapidated, and one colored baby, evidently to keep it out of mischief, is hung up by the neck. A beautifully expressed effect of light comes in at a window on the left, and its delightful influence is felt most strongly upon the little child and her interesting family. This is one of Mr. Johnson’s most effective pictures.”
Hills then comments: “It is the black dolly ‘hung up by the neck’ that startles our contemporary sensibilities. Today, the image conjures forth the memory of black lynchings, but Johnson’s intent remains a mystery.”
Note also below the chair, the decapitated head of a white doll. (See detail image.)