Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné

Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, Project Manager and Co-Author

Catalogue Entry

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Patricia Hills, taken of an image in the Brooklyn Museum Archives

[ 39.1 U.S. Figure & Landscape Sketches ]

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39.1 U.S. Figure & Landscape Sketches

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

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Hills no. 39.1.32

Baur no. 418

Girl Looking Down (No. 2)

c.1878

Pencil on brown paper

9 3/4 x 6 3/4 in. (24.8 x 17.1 cm)

Present whereabouts unknown

Description/Remarks

Baur 1940, p. 79, note for no. 417, Girl Looking Down (No. 1): "This and no. 418 [this drawing, Girl Looking Down (No. 2)] have been tentatively identified as Ethel, Johnson's daughter."

Provenance

Albert Rosenthal, New Hope, Pennsylvania, until 1939

Present whereabouts unknown

References

Baur 1940

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. 79, no. 418, as Girl Looking Down (No. 2).

Sitter Biography

Sitter: Conkling, Ethel Eastman Johnson

Biography:

Ethel Eastman Johnson Conkling (1870–1931). Daughter of Johnson. Married Alfred Ronalds Conkling (m. 1896); after Conkling died, married William H. Holden (m. 1922) and settled abroad. Mother of three daughters, only one of whom had her own children. Ethel was Johnson’s frequent model in his genre scenes of children.

Related work

Conkling, Ethel Eastman Johnson (Mrs. Alfred Ronald Conkling, later Mrs. William H. Holden)

Keywords

Portrait pose:
- Head »

Record last updated February 15, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.

Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Girl Looking Down (No. 2), c.1878 (Hills no. 39.1.32)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=887 (accessed on May 2, 2025).