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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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© 1979 Christie’s Images Limited
[ 31.2 U.S. Portraits, Men, Unidentified ]info
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31.2 U.S. Portraits, Men, Unidentified

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

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Hills no. 31.2.8
Portrait of a Man
c.1876–79
Oil on canvas
26 3/4 x 21 3/4 in. (67.9 x 55.2 cm)
Initialed lower right: E. J.
Present whereabouts unknown
Description / Remarks

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. 

Provenance
Possibly Eleanor Maria Johnson Sloan, Detroit, sister of the artist
Possibly Mrs. Louise Wilkinson Wilson, Detroit, until 1926
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, 1926, as gift of Mrs. Louise Wilkinson Wilson, Detroit (accession no. P.C. 26.247)
[Christie's, May 29, 1979, lot 90 (as Portrait of a Man)]
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1965 Everson Museum
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, American Painting from 1830: A Loan Exhibition Organized Around Selections from the Everson Museum Collection of American Paintings, December 3, 1965–January 16, 1966, no. 22.
1976 Everson Museum
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, 1976, as Portrait of a Man.
References
Everson Museum of Art 1965
American Painting from 1830. Syracuse, NY: Everson Museum of Art, 1965, pp. 16, 39, no. 22, illus.
Case 1976
Case, Richard G. "Everson Has the Faces: Who Has the Names?" Syracuse Herald-Journal, January [16], 1976, as Portrait of a Man.
Wilson, Charlotte May 1976
Charlotte May Wilson letter to Everson Museum, c. February 26, 1976, Everson Museum object records.
Unidentified
Keywords
Record last updated September 22, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Portrait of a Man, c.1876–79 (Hills no. 31.2.8)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=668 (accessed on May 7, 2024).