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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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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. 31.1.100
Baur no. 202
John Hubbard
Alternate titles: possibly Gov. Hubbard of Maine; Governor John Hubbard
c.1860–69
Oil on canvas
27 x 22 in. (68.6 x 55.9 cm)
Initialed lower right: E.J.
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2021: Johnson portrayed several members of this family, including this sitter, John Hubbard (1794–1869), who was Governor of Maine 1850–1853; his son Thomas Hamlin Hubbard (1838–1915), a Civil War Union general, lawyer, and railroad executive; and, when she was a child, Helen Fahnestock (1872–1955), who would later marry Thomas's son John. 

Provenance
Sibyl Emma Hubbard (Mrs. Herbert Seymour) Darlington, La Jolla, California, granddaughter of the sitter, by 1940
Present whereabouts unknown
References
Kennedy Galleries 1920
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 11, addendum "Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Gov. Hubbard of Maine].
Baur 1940
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. 69, no. 202, as Governor John Hubbard.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Hubbard, John
Biography:

Governor John Hubbard (1794–1869). Governor of Maine, 1850–1853.

White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.

Keywords
Record last updated June 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. "John Hubbard, c.1860–69 (Hills no. 31.1.100)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=570 (accessed on March 29, 2024).