⊠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
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Hills no. 31.1.53
Baur no. 179
Frederic James De Peyster
Alternate titles: likely Portrait; possibly Frederick De Peyster; Frederick J. De Peyster
1888
Oil on canvas
27 x 22 in. (68.6 x 55.9 cm) (sight)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson, 1888
loading
Exhibitions
National Academy of Design, New York, Loan Exhibition for the New York Columbian Celebration, October 1892, no. 19, [possibly, as
Portrait]
.
References
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York:
Kennedy Galleries,
1920.
Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 12, addendum “Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as
Frederick De Peyster]
.
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY:
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences,
1940.
Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 68, no. 179, as
Frederick J. De Peyster.
Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In
Eastman Johnson: Painting America,
by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills.
Brooklyn, NY:
Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications,
1999.
Exhibition catalogue, p. 265 [possibly, as
Portrait]
.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: De Peyster, Frederic James
Biography: Frederic James De Peyster (1839–1905). New York City lawyer and philanthropist. Son of Captain James Ferguson De Peyster and Frances Goodhue Ashton; married Augusta McEvers Morris (m. 1871); father of Helen Van Cortland, Frederic Ashton, Francis Goodhue, Augusta Morris and Ella Morris [New York Times, May 12, 1905, p. 9].
White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.
De Peyster, Frederic James
Keywords
- Portrait pose:
- Subject matter:
Record last updated February 28, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Frederic James De Peyster, 1888 (Hills no. 31.1.53)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=539 (accessed on December 2, 2024).
