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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: Unknown
[ 06.0 Mount Vernon, Virginia and Washington, D.C. ]info
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06.0 Mount Vernon, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

During the summer months of 1857 Johnson visited the George Washington homestead at Mount Vernon, Virginia, with his friend Louis Mignot. Johnson painted one or two paintings, but returned the following summer to paint several more. During the 1850s the building and its grounds had fallen into disrepair. A new veneration of Washington, spurred on by growing sectional political conflicts between North and South, led to the formation of a committee of women to restore the site. They formed the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union. The painter Thomas Rossiter brought attention to the situation by writing a plea in The Crayon (September 1858):

The nation has permitted his tomb to crumble, the storms to despoil his mansion, the weeds to grow over his footsteps and his door-sill, with an effort to preserve the sacred domain. At last, the women of the land—God bless them! Having waited and hoped in vain for a recognition of the sanctity of Mount Vernon, moved with feminine zeal and loyalty to the noble dead, have combined, organized and purchased the estate.

[Adapted from Hills, The Genre Painting of Eastman Johnson, pp. 54–55]. —PH

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Hills no. 6.0.6
1907 Sale no. 33
The Kitchen of Mount Vernon in 1857 with Its Occupants
Alternate titles: possibly The Interior of Kitchen of Mt. Vernon with Four Figures; possibly Washington's Kitchen, Cook and Piccaninnies; The Kitchen of Mount Vernon
1858
Oil
12 1/2 x 19 in. (31.8 x 48.3 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right: E. J. 1858
Present whereabouts unknown
This catalogue raisonné strives to reproduce the available historical information, as it was written in the period, while acknowledging that readers today may find many of these terms objectionable or racist. Please see the Racist Language/Negative Stereotypes Statement »
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.

Hills, “Painting Race: Eastman Johnson’s Pictures of Slaves, Ex-Slaves, and Freedmen,” p. 160, n11, 1999: “The scene has an uncanny resemblance to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s opening description of Uncle Tom’s cabin, in which Tom’s wife, Chloe, alternatively feeds the baby on her lap and her two small boys. Seventeen families of slaves—a total of seventy-six—lived on the estate in January 1856; see ‘List of Slaves. Belonging to John A. Washington (III) Mount Vernon, January 15, 1856, taken from a Diary Kept by John A. Washington, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, Mount Vernon, Virginia.’”

MacGibeny, 2021: According to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, which owns a version of this painting, the interior depicted in Johnson's "Kitchen at Mount Vernon" images is actually the Servant's Hall, not the kitchen.

1907 Estate Sale info
No. 33: "In 1857 Mr. Johnson made this study of Mount Vernon, with various others, both exterior and interior, with the permission of Col. John A. Washington, the then proprietor and occasional occupant of the estate, to whom the artist had a letter from the Hon. J. M. Carlisle. It shows the old kitchen somewhat dilapidated, and the plaster has fallen off the wall here and there, showing the broad hand-split laths beneath. The cook is holding one pickaninny on her lap, and a pair of twins are seated on a home-made settle, one of them turning one little black eye to see the spectator."
"Signed at the lower right. E. J., 1858.
Height, 12 ½ inches; length, 19 inches."
[Annotation: “135.00 W. J. Curtis”]
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. 33 (as The Kitchen of Mount Vernon in 1857 with its Occupants)]
W. J. Curtis, February 26, 1907 (by purchase)
Mrs. W. J. Curtis, New York
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1907a Century Association
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, [possibly, as The Interior of Kitchen of Mt. Vernon with Four Figures].
References
Walton 1906
Walton, William. "Eastman Johnson, Painter." Scribner's Magazine 40 (September 1906), p. 273.
Library of Congress Copyright Office 1907
Library of Congress Copyright Office. Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 4: Engravings, Cuts, and Prints; Chromos and Lithographs; Photographs; Fine Arts; New Series. Volume 2, nos. 1–52, January–December, 1907. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1907, [possibly] p. 223, no. 8048 (as Washington's Kitchen, Cook and Piccaninnies), copyright notice issued to Mrs. Eastman Johnson. "An old fire place. The cook is seated with a baby on her lap, two pickaninnies seated on wooden bench," Class I, no. 20709, Feb. 6, 1907. One photograph received February 6, 1907.
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. 33, as The Kitchen of Mount Vernon in 1857 with Its Occupants.
American Art News 1907b
"Eastman Johnson Sale." American Art News 5, no. 20 (March 2, 1907), as The Kitchen of Mount Vernon in 1857 with Its Occupants.
Childs 2022
Childs, Adrienne L. "Compelling Tensions in Washington’s Kitchen at Mount Vernon." Perspectives on Eastman Johnson, National Academy of Design (New York), May 26, 2022.
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Keywords
Record last updated March 29, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Kitchen of Mount Vernon in 1857 with Its Occupants, 1858 (Hills no. 6.0.6)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=54 (accessed on April 26, 2024).