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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: Grogan & Company
Harriett Sanger Pullman Carolan, 1892 (Hills no. 31.3.12)
Photo: Unknown
[ 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. 31.3.12
Harriett Sanger Pullman Carolan
Alternate titles: possibly Portrait of Miss Pullman; Harriett Pullman Schermerhorn; Kate (Katie Tuckerman Schermerhorn) [incorrect]; Portrait of a Lady; Portrait of Katie Tuckerman Schemmerhorn [incorrect]
1892
Oil on canvas
60 3/8 x 40 1/4 in. (153.4 x 102.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Johnson/1892
Present whereabouts unknown
Description / Remarks

“Monthly Record of American Art,” The Magazine of Art, 1893, p. xxii: “The best portrait in this gallery is Eastman Johnson's nearly full-length standing likeness of Miss Carolan of San Francisco, a lady in black gown cut square in the neck, with dark hair and a very determined expression. She looks like the woman to succeed in a social scramble and prove the man in matrimony. She carries a sheaf of red flowers in her right hand and props her left against her waist. Mr. Eastman Johnson has a portrait with richer color in the North Gallery but not so individual a look. This is a likeness of Mr. Orson D. Munn, also a nearly full-length life-size standing figure. It is painted with a richer brush, but in both the hands are not wrought with the ease one might expect.”

Provenance
Possibly Francis J. Carolan, San Francisco, husband of the sitter, by 1893
Lenox School for Boys, Lenox, Massachusetts, for some period between 1926 and 1972
[Grogan & Company, Boston, October 26–27, 1996]
Private collection
Present whereabouts unknown
Exhibitions
1893 NAD
National Academy of Design, New York, March 27–May 13, 1893. (NAD 1893), no. 264, as Portrait of a Lady.
1898 Carnegie Institute
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, November 3, 1898–January 1, 1899, no. 29, [possibly, as Portrait of Miss Pullman].
References
Kay 1893
Kay, Charles D. "The National Academy Exhibition." Harper's Weekly 37 (April 1, 1893), 300 illus. [possibly, as Portrait of a Lady.
Magazine of Art 1893
"Monthly Record of American Art." The Magazine of Art (1893), p. xxii: “The best portrait in this gallery is Eastman Johnson's nearly full-length standing likeness of Miss Carolan of San Francisco, a lady in black gown cut square in the neck, with dark hair and a very determined expression. She looks like the woman to succeed in a social scramble and prove the man in matrimony. She carries a sheaf of red flowers in her right hand and props her left against her waist. Mr. Eastman Johnson has a portrait with richer color in the North Gallery but not so individual a look. This is a likeness of Mr. Orson D. Munn, also a nearly full-length life-size standing figure. It is painted with a richer brush, but in both the hands are not wrought with the ease one might expect.”.
NAD 1893
New York: National Academy of Design, 1893. Exhibition catalogue (1893 NAD), no. 264, as Portrait of a Lady.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): Yes
Examination notes: Delicate painting on face—delicate impasto. Ochre/greenish background. Dark eyes. Typical lips—outlining—delicate coral color; typical EJ eyebrows. Thin painting on sleeve.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Schermerhorn, Harriett Sanger Pullman Carolan (Mrs. Francis Carolan, then Mrs. Arthur Schermerhorn)
Biography:

Harriett Sanger Pullman Carolan Schermerhorn (1869–1956). Daughter of George M. Pullman. Married Francis Carolan (d. 1923) of San Francisco (m. 1892), and then married Colonel Arthur Schermerhorn (m. 1925). “...[A]unt of Mrs. C. Philip Miller” [Chicago Historical Society].

Obituary. "Mrs. Schermerhorn of Pullman Family." New York Times, October 23, 1956.

Related work
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Schermerhorn, Harriett Sanger Pullman Carolan (Mrs. Francis Carolan, later Mrs. Arthur Schermerhorn)
Keywords
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. "Harriett Sanger Pullman Carolan, 1892 (Hills no. 31.3.12)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=780 (accessed on April 28, 2024).