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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: Chicago History Museum, ICHi-176428
[ 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. 31.3.32
Emily Hollingsworth Henderson
Alternate title: Portrait of Mrs. Charles Mather (Emily Hollingsworth) Henderson
1883
Oil on canvas
54 1/8 x 30 in. (137.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower left in red: E. Johnson/1883 [As in other Johnson paintings of the 1880s and 1890s, the date has a flat top]
Chicago History Museum, Gift of Mrs. Robert Gay (1954.249)
Description / Remarks

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."

Provenance
Bessie A. Henderson Merrill (Mrs. Robert) Gay, daughter of the sitter, by 1954
Chicago History Museum, 1954 (by gift)
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Henderson, Emily Hollingsworth (Mrs. Charles Mather Henderson)
Biography:

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”].

Related work
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Henderson, Emily Hollingsworth (Mrs. Charles Mather Henderson)
Keywords
Record last updated May 20, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Emily Hollingsworth Henderson, 1883 (Hills no. 31.3.32)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=747 (accessed on May 19, 2024).