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EASTMAN JOHNSON (AMERICAN, 1824-1906)
Canal Scene (C. 1851)
signed with initials 'E J' (lower right)
oil on paper laid on board
30 x 39cm
Provenance
Eastman Johnson Estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest);
Ethel Eastman Johnson Conkling Holden, her daughter (by descent);
Olga Louise Gwendolyn Conkling, her daughter, by 1940 (by descent);
Private collection, UK (by descent)
| Estimate: | £500 - £800 |
| Hammer price: | £450 |
Literature
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. 63, no. 84, as Canal Scene;
Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny, Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné, no. 2.0.3
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.
This nocturnal scene almost certainly portrays a bridge in The Hague, and dates from the 1850s, when Eastman Johnson was studying there and coming under the influence of the great Dutch Masters of the 17th century such as Rembrandt.
For a related work by Eastman Johnson see, View on the Zieke, The Hague, December 1851, (Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny, Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné, no. 2.0.2).
Having being passed down through the artist's family to the present owner, this work, along with the two other Eastman Johnson pictures in the sale, lots 1658 (Portrait of the artist's daughter) and 1659 (Portrait of the artist's father), has impeccable provenance and Bellmans is delighted to bring them to auction for the very first time.