The identities of the men in these portraits have not yet been confirmed. However, the paintings are known or believed to have been done in the United States based on factors including their style, inscribed dates, and the appearance of the sitters when images are available. Johnson painted the vast majority of his oil portraits after he returned to the United States from Europe in 1855. —AM
MacGibeny, 2021: In 1976, the Everson Museum undertook to identify the sitters in this portrait and their Portrait of a Lady, both Eastman Johnson paintings donated by Louise Wilkinson Wilson in 1926. They ran an article in the Syracuse Herald-Journal with the headline "Everson has the faces: Who has the names?"
Robert Earle Graham, a researcher who had an academic friendship with a member of the Wilkinson family, took the challenge and corresponded with members of the family in order to ascertain the sitters' identities for the museum. Charlotte May Wilson, daughter of the donor, confirmed that the woman was her grandmother Charlotte May Wilkinson. Although she acknowledged that her mother had also donated a portrait of an unknown man, she disputed that this was that portrait. Instead, she recalled the donated male portrait as facing the other way and possibly clean shaven.
- Portrait pose
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