⊠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. 31.1.108
Baur no. 213
Philip Carrigan Johnson, Sr.
Alternate title: Philip C. Johnson
1856, [January?]
Oil on very coarse canvas
22 x 18 1/4 in. (55.9 x 46.4 cm) (sight)
Initialed and dated lower left: E.J; center: Jany 1856 [practically indecipherable]
loading
Provenance
Private collection, Washington, D.C., by 1971 (by descent)
References
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. 213, as
Philip C. Johnson.
Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): 1971-05
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Johnson, Philip Carrigan, Sr.
Biography: Philip Carrigan Johnson, Sr. (1795–1859). Husband of Mary Kimball Chandler Johnson; after her death in 1855, married Mary Washington James (m. 1857); father of eight children, including Johnson.
Related work
loading
Johnson, Philip Carrigan, Sr.
Keywords
- Portrait pose:
- Portrait sitter families:
Record last updated March 27, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Philip Carrigan Johnson, Sr., 1856, [January?] (Hills no. 31.1.108)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=574 (accessed on November 6, 2024).