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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: Private collector
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. 21.1.15
Child Asleep
Alternate title: Watching the Sleeping Baby
1871
Oil on canvas
27 x 22 in. (68.6 x 55.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower left in brown: E. Johnson 1871
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021:  The model for the baby is probably the artist’s daughter, Ethel. The young girl looks much like the model in The Boston Rocker.

Markings
Inscribed on stretcher bar, in pencil: 549, J. H. Miller Co, E. Johnson 1871
Provenance
Private collection, 1930s
Private collection, 1965 until at least 1994 (by descent)
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1877e Century Association
Century Association, New York, December 1, 1877, [possibly, as Child Asleep].
References
Douglass 1999
Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In Eastman Johnson: Painting America, by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue, p. 262 [possibly, as Child Asleep].
Conkling, Ethel Eastman Johnson (Mrs. Alfred Ronald Conkling, later Mrs. William H. Holden)
Keywords
Record last updated September 7, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Child Asleep, 1871 (Hills no. 21.1.15)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=285 (accessed on March 29, 2024).