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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: Bruce Schwarz (Shelburne Museum)
Family Cares, 1873 (Hills no. 21.1.18). Eastman Johnson, Family Cares [detail], 1873. Oil on academy board, 15 x 11 1/8 in. Collection of Shelburne Museum, museum purchase, acquired from Harry Shaw Newman, The Old Print Shop (1956-696).
Eastman Johnson, Family Cares [detail], 1873. Oil on academy board, 15 x 11 1/8 in. Collection of Shelburne Museum, museum purchase, acquired from Harry Shaw Newman, The Old Print Shop (1956-696).
Photo: Bruce Schwarz (Shelburne Museum)
21.1 Girls Indoors

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

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Hills no. 21.1.18
Family Cares
Alternate titles: Little Girl with Golden Hair; Little Girl with Golden Hair (Family Cares)
1873
Oil on academy board
15 x 11 1/8 in. (38.1 x 28.3 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: E. Johnson/-73
This catalogue raisonné strives to reproduce the available historical information, as it was written in the period, while acknowledging that readers today may find many of these terms objectionable or racist. Please see the Racist Language/Negative Stereotypes Statement »
Description / Remarks

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.)

Provenance
[Artists' Fund Society, New York, January 28, 1873, Somerville Gallery, no. 72 (as Family Cares)]
Private collection
Harry Shaw Newman, The Old Print Shop, New York, by 1956
Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont, 1956 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1873a Century Association
Century Association, New York, January 1873, as Family Cares.
1873 Artists' Fund Society
Artists' Fund Society, Somerville Gallery, New York, January 28, 1873, no. 72, as Family Cares, likely owner Eastman Johnson.
1875 Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition
Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, Chicago, 1875, no. 215, as Family Cares.
1964 IBM Gallery
IBM Gallery, New York, The Best of Shelburne, November 23–December 31, 1964.
2006 Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, American ABC: Childhood in 19th Century America, February 1–May 7, 2006. (Exhibition catalogue: Perry 2006), as Little Girl with Golden Hair (Family Cares). Traveled to: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., July 4–September 17, 2006; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, November 1, 2006–January 7, 2007.
2014 Shelburne Museum
Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont, Painting a Nation: American Art at Shelburne Museum, May 24–October 31, 2014.
References
Artists' Fund Society 1873
Catalogue of the Thirteenth Annual Sale of Paintings, Contributed by Members in Aid of the Fund. New York: Artists' Fund Society, January 28, 1873. Sale catalogue, p. 8, no. 72, as Family Cares, "Price of Frames. 30 00".
Evening Post 1873
The Evening Post (New York), January 13, 1873, p. 1.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle 1873a
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 23, 1873, p. 3:1, as Family Cares.
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 13, addendum “Paintings by Eastman Johnson," as Family Cares.
Carbone and Hills 1999
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), p. 158, fig. 69, as Family Cares.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1970s
Examination notes: Note black doll hanging from the stay of the chair.
Related work
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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. "Family Cares, 1873 (Hills no. 21.1.18)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=271 (accessed on March 29, 2024).