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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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Photo: Frick Art Reference Library, gift of Rachel Field (Mrs. Arthur S. Pederson), 1939
[ 31.3 U.S. Portraits, Women ]info
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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

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
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Field, Henriette [Deluzy-]Desportes
Keywords
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)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=735 (accessed on May 2, 2024).