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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: Courtesy of private collection
[ 26.3 Nantucket Cornhusking ]info
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26.3 Nantucket Cornhusking

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. 26.3.1
1907 Sale no. 29
Study for the "Corn Husking"
Alternate titles: Corn Husking; Study for "Corn Husking" at Nantucket; Study for Corn Husking at Nantucket; Study for Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket
1875, October 28
Locale: Nantucket, Massachusetts
Oil
8 x 27 in. (20.3 x 68.6 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right: E.J., Oct. 28, ’75
Private collection
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.

American Art Association sale catalogue, 1913: "A JOYOUS picture with all the life of a sketch at one go, presenting a company of neighbors at a husking bee in a field adjoining a farmyard and large barn. The gathering—their numbers indicating an out-turning of the whole neighboring countryside—produces a scene of abounding life, good cheer, fellowship and industry in a bucolic America that is passing away. Near the big barn, huge rounded stacks are piled, the green field before them, where the busy company is assembled in varicolored costume, being almost wholly covered with the yellow discarded husks of the garnered maize."

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 29: "One of the most important pictures of the artist, which received worthy recognition at the Paris Exposition of 1878, was the “Corn Husking,” which was developed from this sketch. The composition shows lines of men and women busily engaged in husking Indian corn in an open field near a large barn. The dark costumes of the men and the bright colors of the women’s dresses make strong contrasts of color, which are further heightened by a strong effect of sunlight. In the foreground, on the right of the lines of the huskers, two men are carrying a basket of corn, and on the left, beyond the busy company, is a wide vista over a pleasant partly wooded rolling country, with a horizon line broken by buildings and trees."
"Signed at the lower right, E. J., Oct. 28, ’75.
Height, 8 inches; length, 27 inches."
[Annotation: “100.00 / W. F. [sic] Evans”][Should be W. T. Evans]
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. 29 (as Study for the "Corn Husking")]
William T. Evans, Jersey City, New Jersey, February 26, 1907 (by purchase)
[American Art Association, New York, March 31–April 2, 1913, William T. Evans, Esq. Sale, no. 8 (as Corn Husking)]
W. Ames, March 31, 1913 (by purchase)
Private collection
Private collection (by descent)
Private collection, 2006 (by descent)
References
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. 29, as Study for the "Corn Husking".
American Art News 1907b
"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907), p. 3, as Study for the "Corn Husking".
AAA 1913
The Private Collection of American Paintings Formed by the Widely Known Amateur William T. Evans, Esq. of New York. New York: American Art Association, March 31–April 2, 1913. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 8, as Corn Husking.
Crosby 1944
Crosby, Everett U. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA, 1944, p. 12, C.3, as Study for Corn Husking at Nantucket.
Truettner 1971
Truettner, William H. "William T. Evans, Collector of American Paintings." American Art Journal 3, no. 2 (Autumn 1971), p. 75.
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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. "Study for the "Corn Husking", 1875, October 28 (Hills no. 26.3.1)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=410 (accessed on April 19, 2024).