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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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Colonel Joseph May (after Gilbert Stuart), c.1856–1902 (Hills no. 33.0.3). Colonel Joseph May by Gilbert Stuart, n.d., reproduced in Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Work, 1926
Colonel Joseph May by Gilbert Stuart, n.d., reproduced in Lawrence Park, Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Work, 1926
[ 33.0 Late Portrait Copies after Other Artists ]info
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33.0 Late Portrait Copies after Other Artists

It is not known why Johnson copied portraits by Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the early American masters whose style of painting (layers of paint and glazing) were so different from his own. Also unknown are the circumstances relevant to his painting a copy of a portrait of William Backhouse Astor that had been completed by his colleague George Augustus Baker, Jr., after a photograph by Mathew Brady. —PH

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Hills no. 33.0.3
Baur no. 227
Colonel Joseph May (after Gilbert Stuart)
c.1856–1902
Oil on canvas
27 x 22 in. (68.6 x 55.9 cm)
Present whereabouts unknown
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2021: Colonel Joseph May was the paternal grandfather of Reverend Joseph May, who was the husband of Johnson's sister Harriet. The linked image of the original portrait of Colonel Joseph May by Gilbert Stuart provides a likeness of this unlocated copy by Johnson. Johnson painted a currently unlocated portrait of Reverend Joseph May as well.

Provenance
Josephine and Katharine Wilkinson, by 1940 (by descent in the family of the artist)
J. Burke Wilkinson, Washington, D.C., by February 1976 (by descent)
Present whereabouts unknown
References
Park 1926
Park, Lawrence. Gilbert Stuart: An Illustrated Descriptive List of His Work. New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1926, p. 324, no. 536, reproduces source portrait of Colonel Joseph May by Gilbert Stuart.
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. 70, no. 227, as Colonel Joseph May (after Gilbert Stuart).
Sitter Biography
Sitter: May, Joseph (Colonel)
Biography:

Colonel Joseph May (1760–1841). Warden of King’s Chapel in Boston. Paternal grandfather of Reverend Joseph May; husband of Harriet Charles Johnson, sister of Johnson.

Keywords
Record last updated August 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. "Colonel Joseph May (after Gilbert Stuart), c.1856–1902 (Hills no. 33.0.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=595 (accessed on May 8, 2024).