loading loading
Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

Catalogue Entry

no image available
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

View all works in this theme »

Hills no. 23.0.18
1907 Sale no. 141
Her Pet Kitten
c.1878–81
Oil
35 x 25 in. (88.9 x 63.5 cm)
Signed lower right: 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. 141: "A vigorous representation of child dressed in white with black collar and cuffs, her arms folding in eager embrace a very young black kitten."
"Signed at the lower right, E. J.
Height, 35 inches; length, 25 inches."
[Annotation: “42.50”]
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. 141 (as Her Pet Kitten)]
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. 141, as Her Pet Kitten.
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. "Her Pet Kitten, c.1878–81 (Hills no. 23.0.18)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=349 (accessed on May 2, 2024).