Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné

Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, Project Manager and Co-Author

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Photo: Chazen Museum of Art

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Photo: Chazen Museum of Art

[ 31.7 U.S. Portraits, Groups ]

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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. 31.7.13

Baur no. 255

Samuel Worcester Rowse and Robert Walter Rutherford

Chazen Museum of Art title: Two Men (Study for The Funding Bill)

Alternate titles: Study for "Two Men" (Robert Rutherford and S. W. Rowse); Study for The Funding Bill; The Funding Bill—Study for Two Men; Two Men

1880

Oil on canvas

22 1/4 x 27 in. (56.5 x 68.6 cm)

Initialed and dated lower left: E J/1880

Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin, Gift of Stuart P. Feld in honor of Sue Kessler Feld ’69 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of her graduation, 2019 (2019.47)

Description/Remarks
Markings/Labels
Provenance
Exhibition History
Bibliography
Hills Examination/Opinion
Sitter Biography
Related Work
Keywords
Works after this Work

Provenance

Daniel Huntington, by 1906

[Keeler Art Galleries, New York, January 27–28, 1916, The Collection of Paintings Formed by the Late Daniel Huntington, no. 140 (as "TWO MEN")]

Albert Rosenthal, New Hope, Pennsylvania, until 1939

Steve Turner, until 1964

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1964–1966

Terry DeLapp Gallery, Los Angeles, 1966

Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, 1967

Private collection, by 1972

Stuart P. and Sue Kessler Feld, New York, 2005–2019 (by exchange)

Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin, January 8, 2020 (by gift)

Exhibitions

1972 Whitney Museum

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 103, b/w illus., p. 114, as Two Men (Study for The Funding Bill). 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.

References

Keeler Art Galleries 1916a

Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings Formed by the Late Daniel Huntington. New York: Keeler Art Galleries, January 27–28, 1916. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 140, "Original Sketch for Johnson's masterpiece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, entitled "TWO MEN" Painted in 1881. The men portrayed are: On the right Samuel W. Rowse; on the left Robert W. Rutherfurd. This painting was executed a year before the one in the Museum, being dated 1880."

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), p. 71, no. 255, as Two Men.

Kennedy Quarterly 1967

The Kennedy Quarterly 7, no. 1 (March 1967), pp. 6, 18, fig. 17, as Study for "Two Men" (Robert Rutherford and S. W. Rowse).

Hills 1972a

Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 114, no. 103, illus., as Two Men (Study for The Funding Bill).

Hills 1977

Hills, Patricia. The Genre Paintings of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1977, pp. 125–26.

Hills Examination/Opinion

Examination date(s): 1972

Examination notes: Sienna and turquoise tones in background. Light strong from left. Greenish tones on throw.

Sitter Biography

Sitter: Rowse, Samuel Worcester

Biography:

Samuel Worcester Rowse (1822–1901). American lithographer, illustrator, and painter in Boston. Lifelong friend of Johnson.

White, Terry James. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1967–.

Sitter: Rutherford, Robert Walter

Biography:

Robert Walter Rutherford (1818–1904). Brother-in-law of Johnson’s wife, Elizabeth Williams Buckley Johnson (husband of her sister Anna Lawrence Buckley, m. 1848).

Related work

Rowse, Samuel Worcester

Rutherford, Robert W.

Keywords

Portrait pose:
- Full length »
- Group »
- Portrait »
- Seated »

Record last updated July 27, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.

Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Samuel Worcester Rowse and Robert Walter Rutherford, 1880 (Hills no. 31.7.13)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=709 (accessed on October 6, 2024).