Some of Johnson’s most memorable paintings were his small scale compositions of family groups. Such works as these, traditionally called “conversation pieces,” trace their pedigree to England and seventeenth-century Holland. They were commissioned group portraits of wealthy patrons as they wanted to be seen, usually surrounded by sumptuous furnishing and a coterie of family and friends. —PH
Hills, 2021: For an analysis of the Black mechanical doll, see Suzaan Boettger, “Eastman Johnson's Blodgett Family and Domestic Values During the Civil War Era," American Art 6, no. 4 (fall 1992), pp. 51–67.
Baur 1940, p. 53: "The picture was called Christmas Time in the National Academy exhibition of 1865. It is the family of William T. Blodgett (standing at left) in his house on East 12th Street, New York City. Mrs. Blodgett is seated, and their three children are around the table. The boy is William T. Blodgett, Jr., and the girl at the right is Eleanor E. Blodgett."
William Tilden Blodgett (1823–1875). Entrepreneur and philanthropist. Blodgett, Johnson, and John Quincy Adams Ward were “founding trustees of the Metropolitan Museum and worked together to acquire the paintings and sculptures that formed the nucleus of the Museum’s collection” [Website for John Quincy Adams Ward]. Supporter of the Union cause and shown here with his family in the Renaissance Revival parlor of their home at 27 West 25th Street [Metropolitan Museum of Art website, accessed February 27, 2022].
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