enlarge
Photo: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Open Access
Original painting reproduced in Hartmann, "Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter," 1908
Photo: Reproduced in Sadakichi Hartmann, "Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter," 1908
⊠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
View all works in this theme »
Hills no. 31.3.37
Elizabeth Williams Buckley Johnson
Smithsonian American Art Museum title: Portrait of Mrs. Eastman Johnson
Alternate titles: possibly Portrait of a Lady; Elizabeth Buckley Johnson; Study of an Artist's Wife; Study of the Artist's Wife
c.1888
Oil on canvas
31 3/8 x 22 7/8 in. (79.7 x 58.1 cm)
Initialed lower left: E.J.
loading
Markings
Inscribed on verso, on stretcher, upside down in upper left in pencil: Cowin
Exhibitions
Century Association, New York, Memorial Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, February 9–13, 1907, as
Study of an Artist's Wife.
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Stanford, California, Women on the Verge: The Culture of Neurasthenia in 19th Century America, October 20, 2004–February 6, 2005.
References
Library of Congress Copyright Office. Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 4: Engravings, Cuts, and Prints; Chromos and Lithographs; Photographs; Fine Arts; New Series. Volume 2, nos. 1–52, January–December, 1907. Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office,
1907, p. 223, no. 8046, as
Study of the Artist's Wife, copyright notice issued to Mrs. Eastman Johnson. "Lady seated, her right arm and hand thrown over the arm of the chair, left hand pressed against cheek," Class I, no. 20711, Feb. 6, 1907. One photograph received February 6, 1907.
"Eastman Johnson's Paintings Shown: Genre Pictures of the Old School at the Century." New York Times,
February 11, 1907, p. 9: "The finest and boldest in brushwork is one of Mrs. Eastman Johnson, almost like a Ribera in its powerful light and shade."
Hartmann, Sadakichi. "Eastman Johnson: American Genre Painter." The International Studio (April 1908), pp. 110, 111, illus.
National Museum of American Art. Descriptive Catalogue of Painting and Sculpture in the National Museum of American Art. Boston:
G. K. Hall,
1983.
Douglass, Julie M. "Lifetime Exhibition History." In
Eastman Johnson: Painting America,
by Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills.
Brooklyn, NY:
Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications,
1999.
Exhibition catalogue, p. 266, as
Study of an Artist's Wife.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1998-03-10
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Johnson, Elizabeth Williams Buckley (Mrs. Eastman Johnson)
Biography: Elizabeth Williams Buckley Johnson (1838–1927). Born in Troy, New York to Phineas Henry Buckley (1800–1866) and Phebe McCoun (1803–1838). Wife of Johnson (m. 1869); mother of Ethel Eastman Johnson Conkling.
Johnson, Elizabeth Williams Buckley (Mrs. Eastman Johnson)
Keywords
- Portrait pose:
- Portrait sitter families:
Record last updated March 22, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Elizabeth Williams Buckley Johnson, c.1888 (Hills no. 31.3.37)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=742 (accessed on April 26, 2024).