Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Detroit Institute of Arts
Installation of portrait in Mrs. Shelden's music room in Detroit, c. 1910
Photo: Courtesy of Detroit Historical Society
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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
Hills no. 31.3.52
Baur no. 261
Catharine Dusenbury Shelden
Detroit Institute of Arts title: Mrs. Allan Shelden
1885
Oil on canvas
36 3/8 x 30 1/4 in. (92.4 x 76.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson/1885
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Description/Remarks
Detroit Institute of Arts object record, date unknown: "Middle-aged woman wearing dark brown velvet dress trimmed with ivory lace about the neck, down the front and around the cuffs, seated in a three-quarter length pose, her left side toward the viewer, hands clasped in lap. She is seated in a chair upholstered in dark green against a dark brown background."
References
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. 72, no. 261, as Mrs. Allan Shelden.
Hills, Patricia. "Bio on Eastman Johnson and his paintings Worthington Whittredge, Self-Portrait, In the Fields, Catherine Butler Dusenberry (Mrs. Allan Shelden)." In American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Vol. II: Works by Artists Born between 1816 and 1847, introduction by Nancy Rivard Shaw. New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with the Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society, 1997.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Shelden, Catharine Butler Dusenbury
Biography:
Catharine Butler Dusenbury Shelden (1830–1916). Wife of Henry D. Shelden.
Related work
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Shelden, Catharine Butler Dusenbury
Keywords
- Portrait pose
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Record last updated July 29, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Catharine Dusenbury Shelden, 1885 (Hills no. 31.3.52)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=759 (accessed on May 1, 2025).