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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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01.0 Euro Genre

By the summer of 1849, Johnson resolved to go to Europe with his friend George Hall. Although he reputedly was earning a good living with his portrait drawings, figure and genre painting attracted him and first-rate instruction in these fields was not available in the United States. Moreover, both artists realized the importance of studying the European masters at first hand. Hall and Johnson were coaxed into choosing Düsseldorf by the American Art-Union, the most important organ of artistic patronage in America in the 1840s. To raise funds for his travel, Johnson sold two drawings to the AAU and was also assured by Andrew Warner of the AAU that the organization would accept future works by him. Johnson and Hall sailed from New York on August 14, 1849, for Europe. He took classes at the Royal Academy in Düsseldorf, but records of his exact attendance are not known. He felt skilled enough by October 1950 to send two oils to the NAD for sale. In a letter accompanying the shipment he admitted he was sending the pictures “rather earlier in my practice of oils than I should otherwise do.” The two pictures, Peasants on the Rhine and The Junior Partner are long since lost. The majority of his genre paintings were done in the Netherlands, after he moved to the Hague in 1851
[Adapted from Hills, The Genre Painting of Eastman Johnson, pp. 27–32]. —PH

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Hills no. 1.0.2
A Sleeping Monk
Alternate titles: Sleeping Monk; The Old Monk
1851
Oil
23 x 20 in. (58.4 x 50.8 cm)
Description / Remarks

American Art-Union sale catalogue, 1852: "An old monk, with staff and wallet, sits sleeping on a stone bench beside a wall."

Letter from Johnson to Andrew Warner, corresponding secretary of the American Art-Union, from Düsseldorf, July 19, 1851: "I send by the Bremen Steamer of the 8th August three pictures. An Italian girl bust & hands, 24 in. by 29 [An Italian Girl]. Another, 21 by 26. [sic] an Italian girl reading, nearly the whole figure [Italian Girl Reading] & the third a sleeping monk, 20 x 24 full figure [this painting]. I ask three hundred dollars for the three, not however with the intention of fixing the same price to each, as there is difference in the value, the monk being worth probably much the most of the three. I submit them to your Committee with some hopes that they may meet their abrobation [sic] to that amt. & I beg to remark that in case they should see fit to purchase them, the order of the Art Union may be made payable to my father, Philip C. Johnson, of Washington as I have about completed my stay in Dusseldorf."

Letter from Johnson to his friend Charlotte Child in Maine, from Düsseldorf, March 25, 1851: "…I am painting away with men companions & very diligently, trying to get the hang of it, which I find I assure you no easy matter—I sent a couple of things to the Art Union some time ago, & shall presently send them some more, & Italian girl, & a monk—very bad—I do nothing in my old way of crayons."

Provenance
[American Art-Union, New York, December 15–17, 1852, no. 202 (as A Sleeping Monk)]
Ogden Haggerty, December 16, 1852 until at least 1854 (by purchase)
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1852 American Art-Union
American Art-Union, New York, Pictures and Other Works of Art, the Property of the Art-Union, December 15–17, 1852, no. 202, as A Sleeping Monk.
1854 New York Gallery of Fine Arts
New York Gallery of Fine Arts, New York, May 1, 1854, no. 130, as The Old Monk.
References
Johnson, Eastman 1851b
Eastman Johnson letter to Charlotte Child, March 25, 1851, "…I am painting away with men companions & very diligently, trying to get the hang of it, which I find I assure you no easy matter—I sent a couple of things to the Art Union some time ago, & shall presently send them some more, & Italian girl, & a monk—very bad—I do nothing in my old way of crayons,” quoted in Baur 1940, pp. 11–13.
Johnson, Eastman 1851c
Eastman Johnson letter to Andrew Warner (American Art-Union), July 19, 1851, BV American Art-Union—Letters from Artists, New-York Historical Society.
American Art-Union 1852
"Catalogue of Pictures and Other Works of Art, the Property of the American Art-Union. To Be Sold at Auction by David Austen, Jr. at the Gallery, 497 Broadway, on Wednesday, the 15th, Thursday 16th, and Friday 17th, December, 1852. At 11 O’Clock, A. M." Bulletin of the American Art-Union (New York) 10 (1852). Sale catalogue, p. 5, no. 202, as A Sleeping Monk.
Cowdrey 1953a
Cowdrey, Mary Bartlett. American Academy of Fine Arts and American Art-Union Exhibition Record, 1816–1852. New York: The New-York Historical Society, 1953, p. 210, no. 202: "An old monk, with staff and wallet, sits sleeping on a stone bench beside a wall," as A Sleeping Monk, $110.00. Haggerty [buyer].
Keywords
Record last updated May 19, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "A Sleeping Monk, 1851 (Hills no. 1.0.2)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=7 (accessed on March 29, 2024).