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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: Brooklyn Museum
[ 43.4 U.S. Early Portrait Drawings, Women, Unidentified ]info
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43.4 U.S. Early Portrait Drawings, Women, Unidentified

The women in these portraits have not yet been identified by name. However, the drawings are known or believed to have been done in the United States, before Johnson went to Europe to learn to paint in late 1849, based on evidence including their inscriptions and the appearance of the sitters and style of the drawings when images are available. Further research may enable the sitters to be identified. —AM

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Hills no. 43.4.2r
Baur no. 370
Old Woman
Alternate title: Head of a Woman
1844, July
Locale: Maine
Charcoal and white chalk on paper
13 7/16 x 10 11/16 in. (34.1 x 27.1 cm)
Dated lower right in charcoal: July 1844
Brooklyn Museum, New York, Carll H. de Silver Fund (32.1717.2)
Verso: Woman's Torso [verso of Old Woman], c.1844 (Hills no. 39.1.1v)
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2022: The inscription "79 ys 23 May 1844 LG 70 YS 19th February 1844" may refer to the ages of two people. Perhaps the subject of this drawing was 79 years old on May 23, 1844, and the man in the companion drawing, Old Man (whose initials may have been "LG") was 70 years old on February 19, 1844.

Baur 1940, p. 77: "There is a rough sketch of a woman's torso on the back. Evidently a pair with the Brooklyn Museum's Head of a Man [Old Man] (no. 358). It is about the same size and both are matted uniformly in arch-topped mats."

Markings
Inscribed verso: 79 ys 23 May 1844 L G 70 ys 19th February 1844
Provenance
Victor D. Spark, New York, until 1932
Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1932 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1972 Whitney Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition, March 28–May 14, 1972. (Exhibition catalogue: Hills 1972a), no. 1, b/w illus., p. 6, as Head of a Woman. Traveled to: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, June 7–July 22, 1972; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, August 15–September 30, 1972; Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, October 20–December 3, 1972.
1999 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000. (Exhibition catalogue: Carbone and Hills 1999), no. 1, illus., p. 10, as Head of a Woman. Traveled to: San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, San Diego, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, June 8–September 10, 2000.
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. 77, no. 370, as Head of a Woman.
Hills 1972a
Hills, Patricia. Eastman Johnson: Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1972. Exhibition catalogue (1972 Whitney Museum), p. 6, no. 1, illus., as Head of a Woman.
Hills 1977
Hills, Patricia. The Genre Paintings of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes. New York: Garland Publishing, 1977, p. 191, fig. 1, illus., as Head of a Woman.
Carbone and Hills 1999
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. 10, 12, no. 1, illus., as Head of a Woman.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): March 8, 1971; September 17, 2019
Examination notes: 1971: Stolid woman.
Related work
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Keywords
Record last updated March 22, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Old Woman, 1844, July (Hills no. 43.4.2r)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=931 (accessed on April 23, 2024).