EASTMAN JOHNSON (AMERICAN, 1824-1906)

Exhibited
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 3rd - 31st March, 1979, no. 31

Literature
An Exhibition of Charcoal Drawings by Eastman Johnson, New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1920, p. 11, addendum "Paintings by Eastman Johnson" (possibly, as Mrs. Conkling);
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), p. 112, no. 66, as Ethel Eastman Johnson Conkling with Fan (not in exhibition);
Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny, Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné, no. 31.3.17

Footnote
Eastman Johnson (1824-1906) was one of the leading American artists of his time and a co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Having studied in The Hague in the 1850s, he was heavily influenced by the masters of the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century and earned the moniker 'The American Rembrandt' in his lifetime, with their influence being particularly apparent in his use of light. With a style based in realism, Johnson is best known for his genre paintings, portraying scenes of ordinary life both in domestic settings, like The New Bonnet, and, in America's great outdoors, such as The Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket, he also painted the Native American Ojibwe people, see Ojibwe Women, African-American subjects, see Negro Life in the South, and portraits of both everyday and prominent Americans, including American Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. Johnson's works feature in the collections of some of the world's most prominent galleries and museums, including The MET, New York, The Smithsonian, and The National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The portrait offered for sale here is of Ethel Eastman Johnson Conkling (1870–1931), the daughter of Eastman Johnson. She married Alfred Ronalds Conkling in 1896 and, after Conkling died, she married again, to William H. Holden in 1922, settling abroad. Ethel was Eastman Johnson’s frequent model in his genre scenes of children but is seen here, in a formal portrait from circa 1895, at about the age of twenty five, a year before her first marriage. A striking pose, she stands confidently, in profile but turning out towards us, with flushed cheeks and her fan held nonchalantly by her side. Behind her, a free, romantic landscape, made up of loose brushwork, gives her a great sense of definition, particularly around her face and brings her clearly into focus.

Having being passed down through the artist's family to the present owner, this portrait, along with the two other Eastman Johnson works in the sale, lots 1659 (Portrait of the artist's father) and 1844 (Canal Scene), has impeccable provenance and Bellmans is delighted to bring them to auction for the very first time.