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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 Phoenix Art 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. 21.1.20
Baur no. 192
Portrait of Clara Hall (The Tea Party)
Alternate title: Clara Hall at Table with Dolls
1873
Oil on panel
25 15/16 x 22 in. (65.9 x 55.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson 1873
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021: Regarding the family memories stated in the Phoenix Art Museum catalogue: Ethel may have posed for the figure but Johnson may have used a photograph to limn the face.

Phoenix Art Museum: Collection Highlights, 2002: "According to family tradition passed on by the donor, this image of her great aunt was commissioned posthumously (for three thousand dollars) because Clara Hall had died of diphtheria at the age of three while traveling across the continent by train. However, the pretty little girl with golden locks could just as easily be the artist's only daughter [Ethel], who was born in 1870."

Provenance
By descent in the family of the sitter
Mrs. W. L. Wright, by 1940 (by descent in the family of the sitter)
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, 1975 (by gift)
Exhibitions
2010 Phoenix Art Museum
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, The Long 19th Century: 1789–1914 Revolution to World War, December 11, 2010–January 16, 2011.
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. 68, no. 192, as Clara Hall at Table with Dolls.
Adams et al 2002
Adams, Beverly, et al. Phoenix Art Museum: Collection Highlights. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002, p. 25, no. 9, as Portrait of Clara Hall (The Tea Party).
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Hall, Clara
Biography:

Clara Hall (life dates unknown).

Keywords
Record last updated August 28, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Portrait of Clara Hall (The Tea Party), 1873 (Hills no. 21.1.20)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=273 (accessed on March 29, 2024).