Catalogue Entry
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
American Art Association sale catalogue, 1924: "In a dark room with a red carpeted floor a golden haired young girl stands at a round table watering some plants, vines and palms that grow in the pots standing on it. She wears a short mauve-grey skirt and short sleeved blue waist and her face is partly in shadow."