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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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Image courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Overall
Overall
Photo: Patricia Hills
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Overall
Overall
Photo: Patricia Hills
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Detail
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Detail
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Detail
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Detail
Detail
Photo: Patricia Hills
The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3). Inscription
Inscription
Photo: Patricia Hills
[ 31.7 U.S. Portraits, Groups ]info
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31.7 U.S. Portraits, Groups

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

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Hills no. 31.7.3
Baur no. 155
The Blodgett Family
Metropolitan Museum of Art title: Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family
Alternate titles: Christmas-Time; Christmas-Time (The Blodgett Family); Family Group; Family Group (The Blodgett Family)
1864
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: E. Johnson./1864
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Whitney Blodgett, 1983 (1983.486)
Description / Remarks

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."

 

Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. William T. Blodgett, Garrison, New York, by 1865 and in 1867
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen W. Blodgett, by 1940 and until 1983 (by descent)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983 (by gift)
Exhibitions
1865 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, April 27–July 1, 1865. (NAD 1865), no. 376, as Christmas-Time.
1961 Art Gallery of Toronto
Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, American Painting 1865–1905, January 6–February 5, 1961, no. 44, illus., Plate XXII. Traveled to: Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba, Canada, February 17–March 12, 1961; Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada, March 29–April 23, 1961; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 17–June 18, 1961.
1966 Wildenstein & Co.
Wildenstein & Co, New York, Three Hundred Years of New York City Families, January 12–29, 1966. (Wildenstein 1966).
1972 Whitney Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 46, b/w illus., p. 104, as The Blodgett Family. Traveled to: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, June 7–July 22, 1972; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, August 15–September 30, 1972; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, October 20–December 3, 1972.
1999 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 31, color illus., as Christmas-Time (The Blodgett Family). Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
References
NAD 1865
New York: National Academy of Design, 1865. Exhibition catalogue (1865 NAD), no. 376, as Christmas-Time.
Tuckerman 1867
Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the American Artists: American Artist Life. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1867, p. 623, as Family Group, Collection of W. T. Blodgett, Esq, N. Y.
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), pp. 53, 67, no. 155, as Family Group (The Blodgett Family).
Auchincloss 1966
Auchincloss, Louis. "Images of Elegant New York." American Heritage 17, no. 6 (October 1966), pp. 52–53, illus. in color.
Wildenstein 1966
Three Hundred Years of New York City Families: A Loan Exhibition of Conversation Pieces for the Benefit of the Museum of the City of New York. New York: Wildenstein, 1966. Exhibition catalogue (1966 Wildenstein & Co.).
Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 104, no. 46 illus., as The Blodgett Family.
Boettger 1992
Boettger, Suzaan. "Eastman Johnson's Blodgett Family and Domestic Values During the Civil War Era." American Art 6, no. 4 (Fall 1992).
Carbone and Hills 1999
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), p. 63, no. 31, as Christmas-Time (The Blodgett Family).
Burnham 2022
Burnham, Rika. "Toys and Interpretive Play in Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family." Perspectives on Eastman Johnson, National Academy of Design (New York), May 10, 2022.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): c. 1971; 2016-11-03
Examination notes: c. 1971: Painting is dark on top. Dark siennas. Light on picture frame edge on left. Little girl white dress. Red table cloth. Toy puppet. Still life details at left. Red coals in fire. Grey suit. Shawl on lower left. [Note that toy is a puppet of a black child.]
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Blodgett, William Tilden and Family
Biography:

 

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].

Keywords
Record last updated December 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "The Blodgett Family, 1864 (Hills no. 31.7.3)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=702 (accessed on May 6, 2024).