Catalogue Entry
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
MacGibeny, 2021: This painting likely is the sketch for Johnson's large portrait of John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn that was lost in a fire in the New York State Capitol building in 1911. As reported by the New York Evening Post, April 4, 1911: "Another loss was Eastman Johnson's portrait of Chancellor Pruyn. This was considered one of the finest specimens of Eastman Johnson's work and was valued at a high figure. There is a water-color sketch of the same portrait in the possession of William G. Rice of Albany, and it is likely that it will be loaned to the state in order that a copy may be made from it." A copy by Albany artist George Hughes, featuring the sitter at half length rather than full length, hangs in the New York State Senate lobby today.
John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn (June 22, 1811–November 21, 1877). U.S. Representative from New York and Chancellor of the University of the State of New York Board of Regents, 1868–1877.
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