Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Patricia Hills
Raking light
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
Verso label
Photo: Patricia Hills
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29.0 Late Copies after Other Artists (not portraits)
Throughout the modern period artists have learned their craft by copying other artists, and Johnson was no exception. When he returned to the United States in 1855, after going to Europe to learn to paint, he still chose to copy artworks by modern European artists. See Theme 37.4 Euro Drawing Copies after European Artists for his drawing copies after other artists. —PH
Hills no. 29.0.1
Copy after Jules Breton’s “Le Depart pour les Champs”
Alternate titles: Children Playing, Brittany (copy after Breton); Return from the Fields; The Baby Carriage
c.1858–79
Oil on canvas
23 3/8 x 33 7/8 in. (59.4 x 86 cm)
Neither signed nor dated
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Description / Remarks
MacGibeny, 2021: The source which inspired this painting, Le Départ pour les Champs by Jules Breton (present whereabouts unknown), is dated 1857; Johnson may have seen it in New York at a later date. He first rented a studio in New York in 1858.
Exhibitions
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, Two Hundred Years of American Painting, 1961. (Santa Barbara Museum of Art 1961).
Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, American Art since 1850, July 2–31, 1968.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 88, color illus., p. 191, as Copy after Jules Breton’s “Le Depart pour les Champs”. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
References
Bloch, E. Maurice. Two Hundred Years of American Painting. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1961. Exhibition catalogue (1961 Santa Barbara Museum), no. 60.67; no. 50.
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), pp. 92, 101, discusses Breton.
Hills, Patricia. "Entry on Unknown Artist, Copy after Jules Breton, Le Départ pour les Champs, Catalogue No. 50." In The Preston Morton Collection of American Art, edited by Katherine Harper Mead. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1981.
Hills, Patricia. "Afterword/Afterwards: Eastman Johnson's Transition to Portrait Painting in the Early 1880s." In Eastman Johnson: The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket. San Diego, CA: Putnam Foundation, 1990. Exhibition catalogue.
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), pp. 74, 189, 191, illus., as Copy after Jules Breton’s “Le Depart pour les Champs”.
Record last updated March 22, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Copy after Jules Breton’s “Le Depart pour les Champs”, c.1858–79 (Hills no. 29.0.1)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=491 (accessed on April 20, 2024).