Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
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25.1 Women Indoors
Johnson’s wife, Elizabeth, no doubt turned his attention to representations of women alone—either in interiors or outside. Such women are often lost in thought and suggest sentient beings with an inner life. In my interviews with descendants of Johnson’s siblings, she is presented as an independent woman. Johnson painted her portrait in which she assumes the posture of a woman who thinks on her own (also see theme 31.3). —PH
Hills no. 25.1.13
The Toilet
Alternate titles: likely Lady Before a Mirror; Lady Before Her Mirror; The Earring; Young Woman in an Interior
1873
Oil on paper board
26 x 22 in. (66 x 55.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: E. Johnson/1873
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Description/Remarks
Hills, 2021: The woman in this painting likely is Johnson's wife Elizabeth; she closely resembles the woman in Mother's Darling, The Peep, and Study for "The Peep." The setting is likely the Johnsons' home.
Markings
Verso, inscribed in pencil, along the upper right edge: Sideboard 3-3 1/2 high; lower center and upside down to design: 21 3/4 x 23 1/2 sight/ Mch. 31-74; left center edge: G-2/ G-2
Labels
Verso labels on backing board: Exhibition label from Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art; exhibition label from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for Eastman Johnson: Painting America 10/29/99-9/10/2000 (Brooklyn, San Diego, & Seattle)
Verso labels on frame: Torn label from "[Whitney Mus]eum of American Art", New York, for Eastman Johnson exhibition, March 28-May 14, 1972; painting listed as The Earring
Verso labels on frame: Torn label from "[Whitney Mus]eum of American Art", New York, for Eastman Johnson exhibition, March 28-May 14, 1972; painting listed as The Earring
Provenance
Exhibitions
Century Association, New York, January 10, 1874, no. 3, [likely, as Lady Before a Mirror].
National Academy of Design, New York, Fiftieth Annual Exhibition, April 8–May 29, 1875. (NAD 1875), no. 174, as The Toilet, owner James Sloan.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Progress of an American Collection, October 25–December 29, 1963, as The Earring.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, April 15–September 30, 1966, as The Earring.
University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, Maryland, American Pupils of Thomas Couture, March 19–April 26, 1970. (Landgren 1970); (Landgren 1970), no. 22, as The Earring.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 74, b/w illus., p. 83, as The Earring. Traveled to: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, June 7–July 22, 1972; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, August 15–September 30, 1972; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, October 20–December 3, 1972.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Of Time and Place: American Figurative Art from the Corcoran Gallery, September 23–November 15, 1981. (Marzio 1981). Traveled to: Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida; Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky.
Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, [Loan to display with permanent collection], 1987.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 39, color illus., p. 76, as The Toilet. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gilded Cage: Views of American Women, 1873–1921, July 13–August 27, 2002. (Cash 2002).
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770–1950, November 20, 2004–August 7, 2005.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, August 27, 2005–January 2, 2006. Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 12–May 7, 2006; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York, June 3–September 12, 2006; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, October 7–December 31, 2006; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, February 3–April 29, 2007.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., The American Evolution: A History through Art, March 1–July 27, 2008.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., American Paintings from the Collection, June 6–October 18, 2009.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., American Journeys: Visions of Place, September 21, 2013–September 28, 2014.
References
"The Century Club." The Evening Post (New York), January 12, 1874, as likely Lady Before a Mirror.
S. N. C. "The Academy Exhibition, III: Genre and Fancy Pictures." The Evening Post (New York), May 1, 1875, p. 1.
Fiftieth Annual Exhibition. New York: National Academy of Design, 1875. Exhibition catalogue (1875 NAD), no. 174, as The Toilet.
"Fine Arts: A Glimpse of the Pictures at the Academy of Design." New York Daily Graphic, April 16, 1875, p. 347.
"Art in New York: Annual Exhibition of the Academy of Design." Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, April 16, 1875, p. 2.
"Fine Arts: Fiftieth Exhibition of the Academy of Design." The Nation 282 (April 22, 1875), p. 282.
"Fine Arts: Exhibition at the Academy of Design." New York Times, December 16, 1875, p. 3.
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 12, addendum “Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Lady Before her Mirror].
A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Vol. 1, Painters Born before 1850. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1966, p. 115, illus., as The Earring.
Phillips, Dorothy W. A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Vol. 1: Painters Born Before 1850. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1966, p. 115, illus., as The Earring.
Butler, Joseph T. "The American Way with Art." Connoisseur 174, no. 702 (August 1970), p. 313, illus., as The Earring.
Landgren, Marchal E. American Pupils of Thomas Couture. College Park, MD: University of Maryland Department of Art, 1970. Exhibition catalogue (1970 University of Maryland Art Gallery).
Peterson, Harold L. Americans at Home: From the Colonists to the Late Victorians. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971, n.p., pl. 147, as The Earring.
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 83, no. 74, illus.
Williams, Hermann Warner, Jr. Mirror to the American Past: A Survey of American Genre Painting, 1750–1900. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1973, pp. 148-149, illus., as The Earring.
Hills, Patricia. The Genre Paintings of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1977, pp. xvi, 141–42, 161, 236, illus.
Nygren, Edward J., and Peter C. Marzio. Of Time and Place: American Figurative Art from the Corcoran Gallery. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1981. Exhibition catalogue (1981 Corcoran Gallery of Art), pp. 9-12, illus. in color; "The Toilet [cat. entry]," pp. 54-55, illus., as The Toilet.
Louise Snider. "Museum’s Exhibit of Genre Art Reveals Social History." Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1982, sec. A, p. 10.
Garrett, Elisabeth Donaghy. "The American Home, Part IV: The Dining Room." Antiques 126, no. 4 (October 1984), p. 914, illus. in color, as The Earring.
Burns, Sarah. "In Whose Shadow?: Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer in the Postwar Decades." 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. 200.
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. 76-78, no. 39, illus. in color, as The Toilet.
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. 261.
Levy, David C., Sarah Cash, and Terrie Sultan. American Treasures of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. New York: Abbeville Press, 2000, p. 77, illus. in color.
Cash, Sarah. The Gilded Cage: Views of American Women, 1873–1921. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2002. Exhibition brochure (2002 Corcoran Gallery of Art), n.p., illus. in color.
Kilian, Michael. "Major Exhibits Embrace Women: Washington Gets in Touch with the Feminine Side." Chicago Tribune, August 2002, sec. B, p.8, illus.
O’Sullivan, Michael. "The Changing State of American Women." Washington Post, August 9, 2002, p. 49.
Napolitano, Laura Groves. "Eastman Johnson, The Toilet." Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, in association with Hudson Hills Press, 2011, pp. 136-137, illus. in color; 267.
Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): 1969-09-19; 1970-04
Examination notes: Light from open window right; light highlighting the bottles, cf Eakins. Pale raw umber interior.
Keywords
- Subject matter
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Record last updated February 28, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Toilet, 1873 (Hills no. 25.1.13)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=324 (accessed on May 2, 2025).