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

Catalogue Entry

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Photo: Patricia Hills
[ 26.2 Nantucket Genre—Outdoors ]info
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26.2 Nantucket Genre—Outdoors

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. 26.2.3
Boy Sailing Boats
Alternate title: Boy Floating Toy Boats in a Rain Barrel
1873
Locale: Nantucket, Massachusetts
Oil on canvas
19 7/8 x 13 1/4 in. (50.5 x 33.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: E. Johnson 1873
Present whereabouts unknown
Provenance
D. O. Mills
Estate of D. O. Mills, by 1946
Leigh Keno American Antiques, New York, by January 1997
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1946 M. Knoedler & Co.
M. Knoedler & Co, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson, January 7–26, 1946. (Exhibition catalogue: M. Knoedler & Co. 1946), unnumbered, lent by D. O. Mills Estate. Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
References
California Palace 1946
"Eastman Johnson Exhibition." San Francisco: California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1946. Exhibition catalogue (1946 M. Knoedler & Co.), pp. 95–97, as Boy Sailing Boats.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1997-01-04 Childs Gallery
Examination notes: Outlining visible along contour of figure—obvious along sash on straw hat, eyes, contours of hands. Blue highlights along shoes. Wonderful ribbing on sweater—horizontal on sleeve. Delicate coloring on face. Shadow of sweater is underpainting. Barrel is quite sketchy; thin burnt sienna at right and shadows behind window. Flowers—hollyhocks. Turquoise bowl inside window. L.R. "E. Johnson 1873". Prepared canvas wraps around at left. Painted on right—i.e., doorway and stairs wrap to right. Cherry red pants. Some abrasion at edge at bottom and right.
Hills opinion letter: January 10, 1997 view »
Keywords
Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Boy Sailing Boats, 1873 (Hills no. 26.2.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=401 (accessed on May 5, 2024).