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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 the Gibbes Museum of Art
[ 09.2 Black Women ]info
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09.2 Black Women

During the 1860s Johnson painted Black men, women, and children that bestow on them dignity, intelligence, and grace. Many in his family, including his sister Harriet May and her husband Reverend Joseph May were ardent abolitionists. To Johnson, Blacks were not subjects to be ridiculed or satirized. —PH

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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

Hills, "Painting Race: Eastman Johnson's Pictures of Slaves, Ex-Slaves, and Freedmen," in Carbone and Hills, 1999, p. 157: "Dinah shows a heavyset, older African American woman, leaning on her cane. The figure recalls the verbal and pictorial representations of Harriet Tubman, who was well known in abolitionist circles." In 1869 Sarah H. Bradford published her sentimental biography, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, in hopes of raising funds for Tubman’s support. The woodcut that Bradford used as a frontispiece shows a standing Tubman, with kerchief on her head, leaning on a rifle. Johnson’s figure is seated and holds a long walking stick, instead of a rifle. 

Hills, 2021: Although Dinah is the earliest historical title of this painting, there is no evidence that Johnson would have given it that specific title; see Hills, p. 129 in op. cit. The title “Dinah” was assigned to the picture after Johnson’s death; it was a generic nickname applied to Black women, much like “Sambo” was to Black boys. “Dinah" appears in various nineteenth-century folk songs, most notably in “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” with such lyrics as: “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah,” and “Dinah, won’t you blow your horn.”

Dinah was a biblical heroine.  Footnote 33, in Hills op cit. elaborates: “Genesis 34 relates the story of Dinah, raped by Sheehem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the country in which the Israelites lived. Even though Sheehem wanted to take Dinah as his wife, her brothers avenged her rape by murdering Sheehem and his father.”

Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.

 

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 6: "The full-length figure of an old colored woman, seated in full face, resting both her hands upon a long stick which is held under her chin. She wears a blue and red striped turban, a brown shawl with a red and blue border, and a full blue apron over a dark petticoat."
"Signed at the lower left, E.J.
Height, 10 ½ inches; width, 8 ½ inches."
[Annotation: “25.00”]
Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
[The artist's estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 26–27, 1907, no. 6 (as Dinah, Portrait of a Negress)]
Terry DeLapp Gallery, Los Angeles, until 1962
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1962–1965
Leonard Baskin, 1965 until at least 1971 (by purchase)
Ira Spanierman or Spanierman Gallery, New York
[Wechsler's Auction House, Washington, D.C., February 25, 1989, lot 96]
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
Private collection, by 1999
Arthur and Kathy Hammer, until 2006 [may be same as previous]
[Debra Force Fine Art, New York]
Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina, 2006 (by gift and partial purchase)
Exhibitions
1964 Bowdoin College Museum
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting, May 15–July 15, 1964. (Bowdoin College Museum 1964), no. 36, repro, as Portrait of a Negress, lent by Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc, New York.
1999 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 79, 154, as Dinah, Portrait of a Negress, owner, private collection. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
References
AAA 1907b
Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 6, as Dinah.
Bowdoin College Museum 1964
The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting. Brunswick, ME: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1964. Exhibition catalogue (1964 Bowdoin College Museum), no. 36, as Portrait of a Negress.
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. 154, no. 79 illus.; p. 157, as Dinah, Portrait of a Negress.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): Early 1970s
Examination notes: Seated mature black woman with turban on head holding a long pole in front of her on which she almost rests her chin. Large solid triangular shape.
Keywords
Record last updated April 7, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Dinah, c.1867–69 (Hills no. 9.2.5)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=3 (accessed on April 20, 2024).