Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, Project Manager and Co-Author
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Photo: Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK
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

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Hills no. 26.1.12
Baur no. 145 / 1907 Sale no. 51
What the Shell Says
Alternate titles: possibly What the Shells Say; Listening to the Shell
c.1875
Oil on academy board
21 1/8 x 17 in. (53.7 x 43.2 cm)
Initialed lower left: E.J.
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Record last updated June 30, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "What the Shell Says, c.1875 (Hills no. 26.1.12)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=398 (accessed on December 2, 2024).