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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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23.0 Children and Pets

A traditional theme in genre painting, but also seen in children’s portraits, are children interacting with their pets. Pets, then and now, were given to children to encourage responsibility and even empathy toward other creatures. Pictures in the theme Maine Haylofts (13.7) also include children and pets. —PH

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Hills no. 23.0.16
1907 Sale no. 78
The Dead Dove—Her Cemetery
c.1878–81
Oil
8 1/2 x 6 in. (21.6 x 15.2 cm)
Initialed lower left: E. J.
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2022: 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. 78: "A little girl leans, grief-stricken, against the white-washed wall of a house, apparently just having buried her pet bird under an irregular piece of turf which she has arranged upon a narrow flower bed behind her. She is dressed in a short blue frock, white stockings and high shoes, and wears a red bow in her fair hair. The figure is in full sunlight, and casts a luminous shadow upon the white background."
"Signed at the lower left, E. J.
Height, 8 ½ inches; width, 6 inches"
[Annotation: “40.00”]
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. 78 (as The Dead Dove—Her Cemetery)]
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. 78, as The Dead Dove—Her Cemetery.
Keywords
  • Subject matter: 
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. "The Dead Dove—Her Cemetery, c.1878–81 (Hills no. 23.0.16)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=348 (accessed on April 25, 2024).