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

Catalogue Entry

enlarge
Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 2020
31.1 U.S. Portraits, Men

When Johnson returned to the United States, he not only painted genre paintings but he also continued to paint portraits, which gave him a steady income. After 1880 Johnson turned to portraiture almost exclusively. During the 1880s and 1890s he painted businessmen, lawyers, university presidents, and three U.S. presidents from life. At times he also painted their wives and children.

He was also commissioned to paint posthumous portraits, often from photographs. These portraits by and large do not have the sparkle and active brushwork of those done from life. It seems that the demand for portraits of business and civic leaders (and members of exclusive men’s clubs) was so high that portrait painters would often make copies of each other’s paintings to satisfy the market for such images. In many instances, it has been difficult to render opinions for such paintings. —PH

View all works in this theme »

Hills no. 31.1.3
Loring William Andrews
Alternate title: William Loring Andrews
c.1882
Oil on board
23 x 16 in. (58.4 x 40.6 cm)
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2021: It seems likely that this portrait would have been commissioned by William Loring Andrews, father of the sitter, after the early death of his son. The elder Andrews, like Johnson, was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Provenance
Likely William Loring Andrews, New York (by commission)
Private collection, by November 1984
Present whereabouts unknown
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Andrews, Loring William
Biography:

Loring William Andrews (1861–1882). Son of author, editor, and publisher William Loring Andrews (1837–1920), who in 1878 became a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and served as its first librarian beginning in 1882. 

Keywords
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. "Loring William Andrews, c.1882 (Hills no. 31.1.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=496 (accessed on March 29, 2024).