Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné

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

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Photo: Frick Art Reference Library, gift of Rachel Field (Mrs. Arthur S. Pederson), 1939

[ 31.3 U.S. Portraits, Women ]

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31.3 U.S. Portraits, Women

Johnson’s paintings of women are often his best portraits, exhibiting a range of techniques and emphasizing their intelligent faces even when enwrapped in sumptuous fabrics, such as we see in Edwina Booth. —PH

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Hills no. 31.3.27

Baur no. 186

Henriette Desportes Field

Alternate titles: possibly Dorthy [sic] L. Dix [incorrect]; Henrietta Desportes Field; Mrs. Henry M. Field (Henriette Desportes); Portrait

1875

Oil on canvas

23 x 19 in. (58.4 x 48.3 cm)

Signed and dated lower right: E Johnson 1875

Present whereabouts unknown

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

Description/Remarks

Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive files, Eastman Johnson, "Mrs. Henry M. Field (Henrietta Desportes)," b13279270, accessed July 21, 2021: "Dark chestnut hair with black lace cap. Basque of coffee colored material trimmed in black lace with a single tea rose worn in the lace."

Provenance

Henry Martyn Field, husband of the sitter, by 1875

Field Family (by descent)

Clara W. Herbert, Washington, D.C., by 1940

Mr. and Mrs. William Field Herbert, Houston, 1974

Present whereabouts unknown

Exhibitions

1875 NAD

National Academy of Design, New York, Fiftieth Annual Exhibition, April 8–May 29, 1875. (NAD 1875), no. 452, as Portrait, owner H. M. Field.

References

NAD 1875

Fiftieth Annual Exhibition. New York: National Academy of Design, 1875. Exhibition catalogue (1875 NAD), no. 452, as Portrait, owner H. M. Field.

Art Journal 1875b

"The National Academy of Design." The Art Journal 1 (May 1875), p. 156: "Mr. Eastman Johnson makes an admirable show of work, and, if the other members of the Academy were as strongly and conscentiously represented, there would be no cause to complain of the weakness of the exhibition or of the decadence of American Art. He sends 'The Toilette,' 'Milton Dictating to his Daughters,' 'The Pedlar,' and a portrait of the late Mrs. Field."

Kennedy Galleries 1920

Catalogue of an Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920. Exhibition catalogue (1920 Kennedy Galleries), p. 11, addendum "Paintings by Eastman Johnson" [possibly, as Dorthy [sic] L. Dix].

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. 68, no. 186, as Henrietta Desportes Field.

Dobelis 2001

Dobelis, Wally. "Looking Ahead." dobelisfile.blogspot.com, July 19, 2001.

Sitter Biography

Sitter: Field, Henriette Deluzy-Desportes

Biography:

Henriette Deluzy-Desportes Field (Paris 1813–1875 Massachusetts). Wife of Reverend Henry Martyn Field (m. 1851). While in Paris, before coming to America in 1849, she was involved in a scandal documented in the novel All This and Heaven Too by her great-niece Rachel Field [Frick Art Reference Library].

Related work

Field, Henriette [Deluzy-]Desportes

Keywords

Portrait pose:
- Bust length »
- Portrait »
Posthumous:
- Posthumous »
Subject matter:
- Lace »

Record last updated March 14, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.

Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Henriette Desportes Field, 1875 (Hills no. 31.3.27)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=735 (accessed on December 2, 2024).