Catalogue Entry
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
MacGibeny, 2021: Johnson made two portraits of Charlotte May Wilkinson. According to a letter in the Everson Museum files from the sitter's granddaughter Charlotte May Wilson, c. February 26, 1976, the family preferred this portrait because it included her eyeglasses. It stayed in the family for more than 100 years until it was given to the Smith College Museum of Art. The other portrait, which omits her glasses, was given to the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, much earlier without her name attached; instead, it was titled Portrait of a Lady.
Johnson portrayed one other sitter both with and without glasses: Augustus Schell.
Although this portrait is not dated, Robert Earle Graham's research summary in the Everson Museum files states of their portrait: "This portrait is one of two executed by Eastman Johnson in the year 1877 of Mrs. Charlotte May Wilkinson, who lived at 157 James Street, Syracuse, New York, at the time."
Charlotte May Wilkinson (1833–1909). Daughter of “Rev. Samuel Joseph May, noted abolitionist and preacher; and a first cousin, through her father's sister, of the noted writer of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. Through marriage she was also related to…Johnson, as her brother married Johnson's sister Harriet” [Everson Museum Archives]. Wife of Alfred Wilkinson.
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