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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: Michael McKelvey, Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia
Mrs. Cross and Child, c.1866 (Hills no. 45.7.4). Black & white
Black & white
Photo: Courtesy of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.
[ 45.7 U.S. Later Portrait Drawings, Groups ]info
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45.7 U.S. Later Portrait Drawings, Groups

In 1857 Johnson drew the “Five Sisters”—women who were friends or relatives of each other. Beginning in the 1860s Johnson began to make “conversation groups” in oil, as had been the fashion in England in the 1700s. These scenes were of families relaxed in interiors and engaged in talking with each other, such as the Hatches, Browns, Blatchfords, and Burdens. In a few instances Johnson did charcoal drawings of the whole scene or individual members, but it is not clear if such drawings were done before or after their oil counterparts. —PH

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Hills no. 45.7.4
Mrs. Cross and Child
Georgia Museum of Art title: Study for "Mrs. Cross and Child"
Alternate title: Old Woman and Child
c.1866
Ink, charcoal, and white chalk on brown paper
21 x 16 in. (53.3 x 40.6 cm)
Neither signed nor dated
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, University purchase (GMOA 1977.3622)
Description / Remarks

MacGibeny, 2022: The dimensions and composition of this drawing are virtually the same as those of the finished painting Mrs. Cross and Child. It seems possible that Johnson transferred the drawing to the canvas as part of his working process, as described in Sheldon Keck, “A Use of Infra-Red Photography in the Study of Technique,” Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts, 1941.

Labels
Labels on verso: The High Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Hirschl and Adler
Provenance
Private collection, until 1968
Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, until November 1968
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1968–1977
Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, June 24, 1977 (by purchase)
Exhibitions
1968 Kennedy Galleries
Kennedy Galleries, New York, American Drawings, Pastels and Watercolors/Part Two: The Nineteenth Century, 1825–1890, April–May 1968, no. 20.
1972 Hirschl & Adler
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, Faces and Places: Changing Images of Nineteenth-Century America, December 5, 1972–January 6, 1973, no. 55, illus.
1973 High Museum
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, The Düsseldorf Academy and the Americans: An Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolors, September 23–October 28, 1973. Traveled to: Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, January 7–February 11, 1973; National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 27–July 28, 1973.
1974 Union League Club of New York
The Union League Club of New York, New York, Eastman Johnson Retrospective, June 6–July 5, 1974, no. 7.
1976 Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, The Hudson and the Rhine, April 4–May 16, 1976, no. 68, illus. Traveled to: Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, May 20–June 20, 1976.
1976b Hirschl & Adler
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 100 American Drawings and Watercolors from 200 Years, December 4–30, 1976, no. 58.
1978 High Museum
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Children in America: A Study of Images and Attitudes, September 30, 1978–May 27, 1979. (Exhibition catalogue: Humm 1978), unnumbered.
References
Hirschl & Adler Galleries 1972
Hirschl & Adler Galleries. Faces and Places: Changing Images of 19th Century America. New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1972, n.p., no. 55, illus.
Humm 1978
Humm, Rosamond Olmsted. Children in America: A Study of Images and Attitudes. Atlanta: High Museum, 1978. Exhibition catalogue (1978 High Museum), p. 47, illus.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Cross, Mrs.
Biography:

Mrs. Cross (life dates unknown). Possibly mother of Eliza Cross Pinchot (1816–1886), who was mother of collector James Wallace Pinchot and who owned two Johnson portraits whose subject is identified only as “Mrs. Cross.”

Related work
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Cross, Mrs.
Keywords
Record last updated March 25, 2022. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Mrs. Cross and Child, c.1866 (Hills no. 45.7.4)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=940 (accessed on April 30, 2024).