When he returned to the United States in 1856, Johnson continued to make graphite pencil sketches in notebooks. Those that have survived time generally relate to paintings he did later, such as the many sketches of Nantucket characters or for paintings he was contemplating doing in the future. —PH
Hills, 1970: Little girl from back with bellows tucked under arm. Turkeys, ducks, hen roosting, standing woman with bustle.
MacGibeny, 2022: The woman looking down at a turkey in the upper right corner of the rotated image appears in at least four of Johnson's five versions of Woman and Turkey, all dated c. 1870-1880. It is possible that the sketch of the back of a girl holding bellows is related to the unlocated Johnson painting Blowing the Fire, which features a child using bellows to blow the fire under a large kettle.
- Subject matter:
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