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Image courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art
⊠26.6 Nantucket Portraits and Types
Like many artists in the nineteenth century, Johnson often did paintings of “types” that are actually identifiable portraits. For example, the painting John F. Sylvia shows a Nantucket miller in his barn looking up from his account books to look out the window. Called at one time The Falling Market, the subject suggests a man perhaps assessing his position in the economy in the early years of the 1870s when a recession gripped the nation. —PH
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Hills no. 26.6.1
Baur no. 359
Zenas M. Coleman
Metropolitan Museum of Art title: A Fisherman
Alternate titles: Captain Coleman; Coleman: A Fisherman; Head of a Man; Head of a Man (after a sketch of Capt. Coleman)
c.1880
Ink wash on fine canvas
9 x 8 3/4 in. (22.9 x 22.2 cm) (irregular)
Neither signed nor dated
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Exhibitions
M. Knoedler & Co, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson, January 7–26, 1946. (Exhibition catalogue: M. Knoedler & Co. 1946), no. 32, as
Head of a Man, [not hung, according to Frick Art Reference Library copy of annotated exh. cat.]
Traveled to: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, March 1946 (California Palace 1946).
References
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. 359, as
Head of a Man.
Crosby, Everett U. Eastman Johnson at Nantucket: His Paintings and Sketches of Nantucket People and Scenes. Nantucket, MA,
1944, p. 16, no. C.34, as
Head of a Man (after a sketch of Capt. Coleman).
Paintings and Drawings by Eastman Johnson. New York:
M. Knoedler & Co.,
1946.
Exhibition catalogue (1946 M. Knoedler & Co.), n.p., no. 31, as
A Fisherman.
Sales book. New York:
M. Knoedler & Co.,
1946.
Sale catalogue, p. 37
.
Hills Examination/Opinion
Examination date(s): 1971-03-09; 2016-11-03
Examination notes: 1971-03-09: Toothless figure.
2016-11-03: Ink wash on fine canvas; no pencil. Seems spontaneous.
Sitter Biography
Sitter: Coleman, Zenas M.
Biography: Captain Zenas M. Coleman (1815–1878). Whaling ship captain. According to Michael Harrison, Nantucket Historical Association, Coleman was “the last man to command a whaling voyage from Nantucket. In 1876 he became keeper of the Quaise Asylum (poor house), where Johnson met retired sailor and rigger Robert Ratliff, likely among others.”
Keywords
- Portrait pose:
- Occupations:
- Subject matter:
Record last updated February 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. "Zenas M. Coleman, c.1880 (Hills no. 26.6.1)." In Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=967 (accessed on May 1, 2025).
