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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: Allen Phillips\Wadsworth Atheneum
[ 24.0 Adolescent Girls ]info
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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. 24.0.9
Two Girls
Wadsworth Atheneum title: The Party Dress
Alternate titles: The Finishing Touch; The Party Dress (The Finishing Touch)
1872
Oil on composition board
20 5/8 x 16 11/16 in. (52.4 x 40.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson - 1872.
Wadsworth Atheneum, Bequest of Mrs. Clara Hinton Gould, May 26, 1948 (1948.211)
Description / Remarks

American Art Association sale catalogue, 1916: "A group of two girls in the living-room of an American farmhouse. One, the taller of the two, in jacket of black, with red braid, and skirt of orange, is standing facing to the right, where there is an open window, and holding her hat, trimmed with a pink posy and ribbons of blue, by her side with her right hand. She seems to be ready to go out, perhaps to church, but her little sister, in plain everyday frock of green, is reaching up to arrange her collar or pin a brooch at her neck so that there may be no fault to find by the critical. A homelike, domestic scene, sincerely portrayed."

Provenance
P. H. McMahon, Esq.
[American Art Association, New York, May 11, 1916, Valuable Ancient and Modern Paintings, no. 24, P. H. McMahon, Esq. (as The Finishing Touch)]
Meredith Hare, May 11, 1916 (by purchase)
Macbeth Gallery, New York, May 15, 1941
Dalzell-Hatfield Galleries, Los Angeles, February 17, 1942
Mrs. Clara Hinton Gould, Santa Barbara, California, by 1948
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, May 26, 1948
Exhibitions
1872 Artists' Fund Society
Artists' Fund Society, New York, January 30, 1872, no. 70, as Two Girls, likely owner Eastman Johnson.
1948 Wadsworth Atheneum
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, Gould Bequest of American Paintings, 1948.
2006 Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, American ABC: Childhood in 19th Century America, February 1–May 7, 2006. (Exhibition catalogue: Perry 2006), as The Party Dress (The Finishing Touch). Traveled to: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., July 4–September 17, 2006; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, November 1, 2006–January 7, 2007.
2012 Newark Museum
Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, Angels and Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th Century American Art, September 11, 2012–January 7, 2013. (Exhibition catalogue: Connor 2012). Traveled to: Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, February 16–May 12, 2013; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, June 4–September 4, 2013.
References
New York Times 1872
"The Artists' Fund Society." New York Times, January 22, 1872, p. 4: "The number of pictures named in the catalogue is seventy-six; but several of the contributors were on Saturday represented by empty frames. Among them we noticed the name of EASTMAN JOHNSON, but we understand that he has nearly ready a very beautiful genere [sic] painting, representing a young country maiden just putting the finishing touches to her rustic toilet. It is said to be painted with all that exquisite finish of detail which characterizes the best work of this artist."
AAA 1916c
Mrs. Benjamin Thaw, P. H. McMahon and Others Sale. New York: American Art Association, May 1916. Sale catalogue, no. 24, as The Finishing Touch.
Ames 1969/1970
Ames, Kenneth. "Eastman Johnson: The Failure of a Successful Artist." Art Journal 29, no. 2 (Winter 1969/1970), pp. 174–83 illus.
Perry 2006
Perry, Claire. Young America: Childhood in 19th-Century Art and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Cantor Center for Visual Arts), pp.58-60, no. 47 (illus. p. 59).
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1970-09-16
Examination notes: Uncharacteristically stiff figures. Dress not well modeled. Typical color—cadmium red—cloth on chair. Also turquoise ribbon on hat. Shoes are outlined. Clumsy modeling of hands. Sharp nose. Hair of girl on right looks strange. Skirt—a whitened sienna. Chimney goes up diagonally as other EJ paintings—but clumsy.
Keywords
Record last updated May 27, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Two Girls, 1872 (Hills no. 24.0.9)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=319 (accessed on April 25, 2024).