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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: Spanierman Gallery
24.0 Adolescent Girls

As Johnson got to know his nieces and also his daughter Ethel during their teen-aged years, he realized that they were not just genteel creatures who read books, but also smart young adults who read newspapers. Of all American artists, Johnson is perhaps the only artist (besides women artists such as Lily Martin Spencer and Mary Cassatt) who shows women reading newspapers. —PH

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Hills no. 24.0.4
1907 Sale no. 44
"He loves me, He loves me not"
c.1870–79
Oil on board
21 3/4 x 13 in. (55.2 x 33 cm)
Initialed lower right: E. J.
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021:  Although the 1907 Estate Sale catalogue calls the figures “little girls,” they are clearly older adolescents.

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. 44: "Standing in the foreground in shadow, and relieved against a simple but luminous summer sky, are two little girls, one dressed in brown, the other in green, the taller of the two holding in her hands a daisy with which she is trying her fortune in the usual way."
"Signed at the lower right, E. J.
Height, 21 ½ inches; width, 13 inches."
[Annotation: “100.00 / Thos. H. Hubbard”]
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. 44 (as "He loves me, He loves me not")]
Thomas Hamlin Hubbard, February 26, 1907 (by purchase)
Ira Spanierman, New York, by November 1970
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, January 28, 1970, American Paintings & Sculpture, lot 114 (as He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not"); bought in
Present whereabouts unknown
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. 44, as "He loves me, He loves me not".
American Art News 1907b
"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907), p. 3, as "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not".
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1970-11-04 (at Spanierman)
Examination notes: Left figure wears a blue dress—right figure, a tan coat. Faces blurred somewhat, i.e., soft effects to face. Pale yellow background. Unfinished ground on which they stand—feet, unfinished quality.
Record last updated June 29, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. ""He loves me, He loves me not", c.1870–79 (Hills no. 24.0.4)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=301 (accessed on March 28, 2024).