Catalogue Entry
In 1877, and possibly 1878, Johnson visited his sister Harriet May and her family in Kennebunkport, Maine. He found a delightful subject in the games the children played in the barn. For Johnson it was another opportunity to render darkened interiors, from which figures emerge, with sunlight shining through loft doors and playing off the partially illuminated figures and objects in the foreground. It is quite likely that many of the paintings were finished in his New York studio. —PH
Baur 1940, p. 47, note for no. 112, In the Hayloft: "The scene is the same as that in [Baur] nos. 77, 102 [this painting], 135, pp. 47, 48. It is the barn at Kennebunkport, Maine, on a farm rented by the May family during the 1870's. Mrs. May was Harriet Johnson, a sister of the painter, and her three children with their friends were painted in this series during Johnson's visits to them in the summer."
Baur 1940, p. 48: "Mrs. [Walter D.] Edmonds [née Sarah May], a niece of the artist, is the young girl. She has written on the back: 'Not done at York Harbor, but at Kennebunkport, Me. About 1878–1879.'"
Sarah May Edmonds (1870–1948). Daughter of Johnson’s sister Harriet Charles Johnson and Reverend Joseph May (both of whom also were portrayed by Johnson). Married Walter Dumaux Edmonds; mother of Walter D. Edmonds and two other children. According to Tales My Father Never Told by Walter D. Edmonds, she and her future husband [his father] met at a dinner-theater party arranged by “Uncle Eastman” Johnson and “Aunt Bessie.”
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