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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Cheekwood Estate & Gardens
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26.1 Nantucket Genre—Indoors
In June 1869 Johnson married Elizabeth Buckley of Troy, New York, and the following summer he and his wife and their baby, Ethel, went to Nantucket, Massachusetts for the season. Johnson responded enthusiastically to Nantucket, which seemed to be filled with characters and activities that appealed to him, and the couple returned to the island each summer. Beside painting genre scenes of men, women, and children both indoors and outside, Johnson launched a major theme—the cranberry harvest—a time in the fall when the whole community turned out to pick the wild cranberries ripening in the bogs of Nantucket. Johnson made at least eighteen studies before crafting his major painting, The Cranberry Harvest, which was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1880. —PH
Hills no. 26.1.16
The Embers
Alternate title: possibly Embers
1879
Locale: Nantucket, Massachusetts
Oil on board
16 5/8 x 14 1/2 in. (42.2 x 36.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: 1879/E. Johnson
Description / Remarks
Hills opinion letter, 2003: "The model for the figure is Captain Charles Myrick, one of the retired whaling captains who lived on Nantucket, where Johnson spent his summers during the 1870s. Myrick bends forward, leaning his face on a Malacca cane as he stares into the embers of the fire in the hearth."
Labels
Verso label: Picture of an Old Man by/Eastman Johnson/41 Fifth Ave
Provenance
Private collection, New England, until 2004
[Northeast Auctions, Manchester, New Hampshire, March 6–7, 2004, lot 231 (as Embers)]
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 2004
Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville, Tennessee
Exhibitions
1889 Lady Managers of the Garfield Hospital
Lady Managers of the Garfield Hospital, Washington, D.C., Exhibition of Paintings by American Artists, March 1889. (Exhibition catalogue: Garfield Hospital Aid Association 1889), no. 66, [possibly, as Embers].1898 Lotos Club
Lotos Club, New York, March 26, 1898, no. 80, [possibly, as Embers].1899 Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1899, no. 169, [possibly, as Embers].1899 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, April 3–May 13, 1899. (NAD 1899), no. 118, [possibly, as Embers].1900a Century Association
Century Association, New York, March 3, 1900, [possibly, as Embers].1901 Boston Art Club
Boston Art Club, Boston, January 5–February 2, 1901, no. 32, [possibly, as Embers].1901 Lotos Club
Lotos Club, New York, February 23, 25–26, 1901, no. 20, [possibly, as Embers].1905 Lotos Club
Lotos Club, New York, January 28, 1905, no. 22, [possibly, as Embers].1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, [possibly, as Embers].References
Garfield Hospital Aid Association 1889
Garfield Hospital Aid Association. Catalogue of the Exhibition of Paintings by American Artists Held at Washington, D.C, March, 1889. New York: J. J. Little & Co., 1889. Exhibition catalogue (1889 Lady Managers of the Garfield Hospital), p. 28, no. 66 [possibly, as Embers].NAD 1899
New York: National Academy of Design, 1899. Exhibition catalogue (1899 NAD), no. 118 [possibly, as Embers].Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), pp. 101, 106-111, as Embers.Carbone and Hills 1999
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), pp. 106, 111, as Embers.Douglass 1999
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, pp. 265, 266 [possibly, as Embers].Jehle 1999
Jehle, Michael A., ed. Picturing Nantucket: An Art History of the Island with Paintings from the Collection of the Nantucket Historical Association. Nantucket, MA: Nantucket Historical Association, 1999, pp. 45-47, 132-133, fig. 156.Carbone 1999c
Carbone, Teresa A. "Eastman Johnson's Portrait of Aging New England." The Magazine Antiques 156, no. 5 (November 1999), pp. 705-707, Pls. XV and XVI.Simons 2013
Simons, Benjamin. "Eastman Johnson and His Contemporaries on Nantucket." AFAnews.com [Antiques & Fine Art Magazine], January 7, 2013.Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 2003-12-16
Examination notes: Verso: nothing. 7 3/4" high point of hat to low point of shoe. Face pressed into cane top. Graphite along edge of cane by the ivory top. Highlight at lower tip of cane. An "X" to right of top hat (on wall). Furnishings: Queen Anne lowboy, pipe stand, Chippendale mirror, telescope. Book on lowboy. Sits in a small, green bird cage Windsor chair. On mantle: Blue-green and white baluster vase (Chinese export). Old brass oil lamps, iron, pewter tankard. On wall: lantern, hammer, lantern. Blue highlights on legs of lowboy, and shoes. No andirons, but a poker very faint. Floorboards go up to brick hearth. Jacket and trousers - middle tones - just the ground. Bricks on the left. Scumbling. Red glowing coals.
Related work
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Myrick, Charles
Keywords
- Subject matter:
- Canes »
- Telescopes »
Record last updated December 6, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Embers, 1879 (Hills no. 26.1.16)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=390 (accessed on April 28, 2024).