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 Baur no. 112, In the Hayloft: "The scene is the same as that in nos. 77 [this painting], 102, 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."