Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
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Photo: Courtesy Booth Family Center for Special Collections, Georgetown University Library
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09.3 Black Children and Adolescents
During the 1860s Johnson painted Black men, women, and children that bestow on them dignity, intelligence, and grace. Many in his family, including his sister Harriet May and her husband Reverend Joseph May were ardent abolitionists. To Johnson, Blacks were not subjects to be ridiculed or satirized. —PH
Hills no. 9.3.1
1907 Sale no. 22
Hannah Amidst the Vines
Alternate titles: Negro Girl; Negro Girl looking out of a Window
1859
Oil on canvas
14 x 10 1/2 in. (35.6 x 26.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: E. Johnson/1859
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Description / Remarks
Hills, 2021: The model is the same as in Hannah.
Although John I. H. Baur owned and annotated a copy of the catalogue of Johnson's 1907 Estate Sale, he did not include this work in his own 1940 catalogue listing; he must have obtained it after publication.
1907 Estate Sale 
No. 22: "This is a study of a chubby-faced little negro child standing on a wooden balcony or piazza which is partly overgrown by a large grape vine. She rests her left arm on the rail of the balcony and shyly gazes out of her deep-set dark eyes towards the spectator."
"Height, 14 inches; width, 12 inches"
[Annotation: “35.00”]
"Height, 14 inches; width, 12 inches"
[Annotation: “35.00”]
Provenance
Exhibitions
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 73, as Hannah Amidst the Vines. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, American ABC: Childhood in 19th Century America, February 1–May 7, 2006. (Exhibition catalogue: Perry 2006), as Hannah Amidst the Vines. Traveled to: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., July 4–September 17, 2006; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, November 1, 2006–January 7, 2007.
References
Tuckerman, Henry T. Book of the American Artists: American Artist Life. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son, 1867, p. 471, as Negro Girl looking out of a Window.
Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies, and Drawings by the Late Eastman Johnson, N.A. New York: American Art Association, February 1907. Sale catalogue, n.p., no. 22, as Hannah Amidst the Vines.
Father Richards. Catalogue of Paintings in Georgetown University. 1922. Georgetown University Archives, Washington, DC. Museum inventory; listing of paintings, as Negro Girl.
Carbone, Teresa A., and Patricia Hills. Eastman Johnson: Painting America. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 1999. Exhibition catalogue (1999 Brooklyn Museum), pp. 133, 135 illus., 136, no. 73, as Hannah Amidst the Vines.
Wilson, Harriet E. Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black. Charlottesville, VA: American Studies at the University of Virginia, 2001, Reproduced on cover.
Perry, Claire. Young America: Childhood in 19th-Century Art and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Exhibition catalogue (2006 Cantor Center for Visual Arts), p. 229.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1987-05
Keywords
- Portrait pose:
- Subject matter:
Record last updated September 8, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Hannah Amidst the Vines, 1859 (Hills no. 9.3.1)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=85 (accessed on April 24, 2024).