Catalogue Entry
Like many artists in the nineteenth century, Johnson often did paintings of “types” that are actually identifiable portraits. For example, the painting John F. Sylvia shows a Nantucket miller in his barn looking up from his account books to look out the window. Called at one time The Falling Market, the subject suggests a man perhaps assessing his position in the economy in the early years of the 1870s when a recession gripped the nation. —PH
Nantucket Historical Association website, accessed February 26, 2021: "Half-length portrait of a man in seated position wearing dark coat, vest, and white collared shirt with red tie, Dark sideburns. White and red cloth on head. Hands clasped in front of his waist. Green neutral background."
Robert Ratliff (1794–1882). Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1794, Ratliff served with the Royal Navy and participated in the burning of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. In 1815, he was aboard H.M.S. Northumberland, under command of Sir George Cockburn, when the British transported Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena [Exhibition Label from Eastman Johnson and His Contemporaries, 2011–2013, Whitney Gallery]. “Shipwrecked on Nantucket in 1820, Ratliff never returned to England. He joined several whaling voyages, married Judith Robinson (1790–1871), and later had a business as a rigger on the downtown waterfront. When this business burned in the 1846 fire, Ratliff secured a position in town government” [NHA website].
- Portrait pose:
- Subject matter: