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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: Alex Jamison, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
[ 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. 31.3.36
Elizabeth Williams Buckley Johnson
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution title: Mrs. Eastman Johnson
Alternate titles: Mrs. Eastman Johnson (Elizabeth W. Buckley); Portrait of a Lady; Portrait of Mrs. Eastman Johnson
1887
Oil on canvas
55 x 42 in. (139.7 x 106.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson/1887 (As in other Johnson paintings of the 1880s and 1890s, the date has a flat top)
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966 (66.2607)
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2021: Eastman Johnson married Elizabeth Williams Buckley of Troy, New York, in 1869. Their daughter, Ethel, was born in 1870.

The New York Times exhibition review, April 2, 1887: “One of the finest pieces in the exhibition is Mr. Eastman Johnson’s portrait of a lady in a black silk dress, with a waist of black lace and red. The colors of cushions, hangings of sofa and wall are rich and glowing; the features modeled charmingly after Mr. Johnson’s method of melting outlines; the pose is natural, and the expression agreeable.”

Provenance
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, and The Old Print Shop, New York, c. January 26, 1945–March 13, 1958 (by purchase)
Joseph Herman Hirshhorn, March 13, 1958–May 17, 1966 (by purchase)
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966 (by gift)
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1966 (by gift)
Exhibitions
1887 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, April 4–May 14, 1887. (Exhibition catalogue: NAD 1887), no. 363, as Portrait of a Lady.
1894 PAFA
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Sixty-fourth Annual Exhibition, December 17, 1894–February 23, 1895, no. 178, as Portrait of Mrs. Eastman Johnson.
1945 Portraits, Inc.
Portraits, Inc, New York, Portraits of American Women, December 5–29, 1945, no. 26.
1946 M. Knoedler & Co.
M. Knoedler & Co, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson, January 7–26, 1946. (Exhibition catalogue: M. Knoedler & Co. 1946), no. 6, as Portrait of Mrs. Eastman Johnson. Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
1949 Montclair Art Museum
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey, Portraits of Eminent People, March 27–April 17, 1949, no. 14.
1974 Hirshhorn Museum
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Inaugural Exhibition, October 4, 1974–September 15, 1975, p. 705.
References
Harper's Weekly 1887
"Pictures at the Spring Academy." Harper's Weekly 31, no. 1581 (April 9, 1887), p. 254, "Eastman Johnson has a portrait of his wife, a grave and beautiful piece of work, a standing likeness of the Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, and a genre picture from Nantucket—the interior of a shoe-maker's shop patronized by a knot of old whalers."
NAD 1887
New York: National Academy of Design, 1887. Exhibition catalogue (1887 NAD), no. 363, as Portrait of a Lady.
New York Times 1887a
New York Times, April 2, 1887, review of National Academy of Design exhibition.
Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor 1946
Macagy, Jermayne. "The Art of Eastman Johnson." Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor 3 (March 1946), p. 95.
M. Knoedler & Co. 1946
Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1946. Exhibition catalogue (1946 M. Knoedler & Co.), n.p., no. 6, as Portrait of Mrs. Eastman Johnson.
Lerner 1974
Lerner, Abram. The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1974, p. 705.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1998-03-11
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
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, 1887 (Hills no. 31.3.36)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=743 (accessed on May 7, 2024).