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
Jeannine Falino, curator and museum consultant, email communication, May 14, 2022: "As the daughter of a financier, and wife of a Chicago manufacturer whose boot and shoe business was one of the largest in the west, Emily Hollingsworth Henderson led a life of travel and philanthropy. With hands clasped, and her head turned to the viewer in a straightforward gaze, she appears in an elegant dinner dress that was created in Paris by Charles Frederick Worth, a favorite designer among wealthy American women."
Chicago Historical Society information sheet, undated: "Portrait of Mrs. Charles Mather (Emily Hollingsworth) Henderson (1838–1922), three-quarter length, facing slightly left. Dressed in gold gown trimmed with lace. Jewelry consists of earrings and ring on left hand. Background of dark blue drapery with red flowers."
Emily Hollingsworth Henderson (1838–1922). Wife of prominent Chicago citizen Charles Mather Henderson, who was involved in many charitable relief organizations in the city, and who was a direct descendant of Cotton Mather, the Puritan clergyman [Josiah Seymour Currey, Chicago: Its History and Its Builders, vol. 5, entry for “Rudolph Matz”].
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