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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Catalogue Entry
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Photo: Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine
Overall
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Inscription
Photo: Patricia Hills
⊠
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
Hills no. 26.2.6
1907 Sale no. 130
Kite Flying
1907 Sale title: Flying a Kite
Alternate titles: Flying the Kite; Kite Flying (The Kite); On the Hillside
c.1875–80
Locale: Nantucket, Massachusetts
Oil on board
21 1/4 x 25 3/4 in. (54 x 65.4 cm)
Initialed center right in brown paint: E.J.
Description / Remarks
Hills, 2022: Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.
1907 Estate Sale 
No. 130: "On the sloping summit of a high grassy bank sits a nurse engaged in knitting, while a little girl standing beside her is amusing herself holding the cord of a kite. Both figures are in a strong effect of sunlight, which brings them into vigorous relief against a quiet summer sky, across which drifts a thin veil of vapor. Near the group a broken kite lies in the grass, and below the bank, on the left, is suggested a meadow with a narrow stream of water and a tree-surrounded country residence, from the tower of which floats the Stars and Stripes."
"Signed at the lower right, E. J.
Height, 22 inches; length, 26 inches."
[Annotation: “30.00”]
"Signed at the lower right, E. J.
Height, 22 inches; length, 26 inches."
[Annotation: “30.00”]
Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
[The artist's estate sale, American Art Association, New York, February 26–27, 1907, no. 130 (as Kite Flying)]
[Fifth Avenue Auction Rooms, New York, January 2, 1919, no. 73 (as On the Hillside)]
William A. Burnett, Amherst, Massachusetts, January 2, 1919 (by purchase)
Estate of William A. Burnett, Amherst, Massachusetts
[J. H. Miller Art Gallery, 1927]
Holyoke League of Arts & Crafts, Holyoke, Massachusetts (by purchase)
The Holyoke Museum of the Holyoke Public Library Corporation, Holyoke, Massachusetts (by donation)
[Grogan & Company, Boston, November 14, 1991, Property from the Holyoke Public Library Corporation, lot 46]
Thomas Colville, Inc., 1993
Peter and Paula Lunder, 1993 (by purchase)
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2013
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as Flying a Kite.2009 Colby College Museum
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, Art at Colby: Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Colby College Museum of Art, July 11, 2009–February 21, 2010.2012 Newark Museum
Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, Angels and Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th Century American Art, September 11, 2012–January 7, 2013. (Exhibition catalogue: Connor 2012). Traveled to: Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, February 16–May 12, 2013; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, June 4–September 4, 2013.References
Selby 1907
Selby, Mark. "An American Painter: Eastman Johnson." Putnam's Monthly 2 (August 1907), p. 533: "'Flying the Kite'…seemed to so many, in its directness and its rejection of the unessential, a precursor of Winslow Homer," as Flying the Kite.AAA 1907b
Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 130, as Flying a Kite.Hills 1977
Hills, Patricia. The Genre Paintings of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1977, p. 139, as Kite Flying.Connell 1981
Connell, E. Jane. "American paintings at the Holyoke Museum." The Magazine Antiques (November 1981), p. 1187, Pl. IV.Connor 2012
Connor, Holly Pyne. Angels and Tomboys: Girlhood in Nineteenth-Century American Art. Rohnert Park, CA: Pomegranate Communications, 2012. Exhibition catalogue (2012 Newark Museum), p. 147, illus.Colby College 2013
The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College. Waterville, ME: Colby College, 2013, p. 85.Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1991-10-04 (Grogan & Co.); 2014-08-02; 2018-08-11
Examination notes: 2014-08-02: Underpainting used for middle tones. Standing girl holds string—suggestion of kite at end. Red hose—sketchy shoes. Profiles sketchy. L: American flag on a structure with pillars [maybe overcleaned]. Bold white side of dress and cap of woman. Kite on ground below woman—disappearing. Whites becoming transparent.
2018-08-11: Note background shoreline.
2018-08-11: Note background shoreline.
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Record last updated April 7, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Kite Flying, c.1875–80 (Hills no. 26.2.6)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=402 (accessed on May 5, 2024).