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Child At Prayer, Nantucket, c.1870
36 x 27
Oil on canvas laid on panel
Framed: 48 x 39
Signed, l.r., E. Johnson
| | | | | | Provenance:
Private Collection; Beverly Hills, California | | | | | |
Notes:
Excellent condition; original canvas layed on mahagony panel. American, 19th Century (reproduction), applied ornament and gilded, Louis-style frame.
Patricia Hills Letter
Ms. Patricia Hills, Art historian & author, expert on Eastman Johnson, in 1972, examined the painting at the owner’s home on June 7, 1990. In her letter, she describes it as a well painted picture, rich in beige, cream and brown colors and true in modeling. In her opinion, it was certainly painted by the American Genre painter Eastman Johnson (1824-1906). The painting includes characteristics typical of Johnson’s paintings: a thin sienna underpainting, graphite (pencil) defining some of the details such as the bed post, and the averted face of a child. Moreover, the sentiment expressed -- the simple piety of a child -- is also characteristic of Johnson’s subjects.
Johnson did other paintings of children in quiet moments: dressing a doll, reading a book, cuddling a rabbit. What is most impressive about Child At Prayer is the size. Most of his paintings of single children were smaller.
It was listed in John I. H. Baur’s checklist of Johnson paintings, which was included as an appendix to his American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824-1906 (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1940), p.64, entry 88. At that time the owners were the Misses F. Pearl & Elizabeth Browning, who owned several Johnson painting. The Brooklyn Museum has a photograph of the painting.
“CHILD AT PRAYER”
...the ominous things that go bump in the night. Nantucket, circa 1870
“Child at Prayer” is a study of light and dark in the form of an oil painting depicting a single child in a white nightdress kneeling beside his bed with his face in his hands not so much in reverence, as to conceal from sight. To the left of the figure, the shadow fades down the coverlet to the dark at the foot of the bed where a reddish hue suggest the ominous things that go bump in the night. To the right of the figure is the crisp white sheet and pillow case which together with nightdress, reflect a bright light that would seem to suggest that the principle character is making some progress with his problem. According to Dr. Patricia Hill, “Child at Prayer” was painted in the late sixties or early seventies. In an April 15, 1940 article of Art Digest, pg. 6 it briefly describes East Johnson’s studio as being built on wheels which helped him capture life as it happened. It was during this period that Eastman Johnson began the series of oil sketches “Sugaring Off”. This group of paintings lacked the finish which was popular at the time. They were free, accurate and natural. The period and the style in which “Child at Prayer” was executed are referred to by Norman Hirschl in the forward of the April 1940 exhibition catalogue at the Douthett Gallery. He writes, “when these sketches are placed alongside their highly—finished descendents, one quickly grasps their tremendous strength and vitality”.
John I. H. Baur included “Child at Prayer” in his 1940 checklist of Eastman Johnson paintings as an appendix to his American Genre Painter; Eastman Johnson, 1824—1906. Baur appraised the 1940 exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum catalogues “At its best, Johnson’s work rose entirely above sentimentality of any kind and was strong, clean painting in a peculiarly American idiom.” In a magazine article by Howard Sevree, Jan. 1940, pg. 38, Magazine of the Arts, he compares the 1870’s period to work by Winslow Homer “...late 60’s, early 70’s and Nantucket vignettes of the 70’s together with work done intermittently at Washington, he frequently rises above mere genre painting approaching Homer,...” The comparison to Homer was related in a previous article in the Art Digest, October 15, 1937. The article was pertaining to the first organized Eastman Johnson exhibition since his death. The exhibition was held at the Frazier Gallery in 1937. The writer came to the same conclusions: “When the Civil War came, Johnson followed the army on the Potomac much as Homer did. The 70’s were spent on Nantucket and from this period are many of the artist's best known pictures. Works from this period recall the treatment of Winslow Homer in their easy accomplished naturalism and assuming content.” Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer have a unique similar early beginning, they both started out working in Boston for John H. Bufford’s lithography shop and neither worked there long. They both were extremely gifted artists. Eastman Johnson created excellent portraits and renderings without formal training and Winslow Homer paintings were watercolors at levels of excellence rarely seen before. They both ventured to Paris and they both produced excellent paintings of the Civil War.
Another very important correlation between Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson during the 1870’s period is mentioned in Art News in 1972. In the article “Painters of the New Eden” pp.
36—38, Dr. Patricia Hill explains: “Child at Prayer”, together with other oil sketches sold during the 1907 Sale. All show one or more of the central figures facing away. This technique allowed both Homer and Johnson to move away from the old genre standards of giving priority to the human face and its individuality to the more advanced style of looser brushwork and strong contrasts of light and dark. For Johnson, however, this freedom was only present in his oil sketches. Good examples of this oil sketch style can be found in “Southern Courtship”, “The Woodcutter’s Lunch” (Collection of Forbes Magazine), “The Horse Trade” and “Whittling in the Barn” (1866, Deerfield Academy, The Charles P. Russell Collection). “Woman on a Hill” (1877—1880, Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.) and probably the closest related painting to “Child at Prayer” is “The Little Convalescent” (1872—1880, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Frederick Brown Fund). The paintings by Winslow Homer that also relate to the same period (1870’s) and approach are, “On Guard”, “The Berry Pickers”, “Three k3oys on the Shore” and “The Basket of Clams”.
“No artist is more closely identified with Nantucket than Eastman Johnson and for good reason. A large number of his finest paintings from “The Old Stage Coach” (1871 Milwaukee Art Museum), through his “Corn Husking at Nantucket”(1876; Metropolitan Museum, N.Y.), to his great“Cranberry Harvest Island of Nantucket” (1880, Tinken Art Gallery, San Diego) are masterpieces of American genre painting.”
Art Across America, Two Centuries of Regional
Painting, Gerdts, pg. 50
Some artists produce their greatest paintings when they are the happiest. Eastman Johnson had begun summering in Nantucket in 1870, the year after his marriage. He would return each season throughout the 1870’s and 80’s and some years well into the winter. A good example of what Eastman Johnson found in Nantucket can be found in the painting “The Nantucket School of Philosophy” (18.87, Walter Art Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland) which depicts contemplative, wise and noble men long retired from active seafaring. This was the end of a very important era for Nantucket and America. Eastman Johnson recorded it as no one else could. The relationship to the same style of approach is suggested in both the “Nantucket School of Philosophy” and “Child at Prayer”. They are thinly painted with a dark background and the figures are i11uminated. This concept can be related to Johnson’s education at the Hague, while studying Rembrandt. He has been referred to as “the American Rembrandt”, not totally because of style (which does relate) but because he attended a number of Balls in Holland dressed in 17th Dutch Burger costume.
By the end of the 1880’s Eastman Johnson found himself distressed with finances. He decided to turn away from his genre painting to the old standby, portraiture. He spent the remainder of this life painting portraits to escape his financial woes.
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(1824-1906)
Eastman Johnson, (1824-1906)
Eastman Johnson, portrait and genre painter, was perhaps the most prominent and successful of the many American artists who came to the fore at the time of the Civil War. Born Jonathan Eastman Johnson in Lowell, Maine, July 29, 1824; died in New York, April 5, 1906. He studied in Dusseldorf, Rome, Paris and The Hague, and settled in New York, becoming a member of the National Academy of Design in 1860. He was the son of Philip C. Johnson, Secretary of State for Maine. He worked in a lithographic establishment in Boston in 1840 and after a year went to Augusta, ME, where he commenced making portraits in back crayon. He also visited Newport. In 1845 the family moved to Washington D.C., and young Johnson drew many crayon portraits, working in the Senate Committee Rooms at the Capitol. In 1858 he moved to New York, where he remained the rest of his life, except for a period spent in Boston and in visits to Europe in 1885, 1891 and 1897.
He painted his best rural genre in Nantucket, during the 1870's.
MEMBER:
National Academy of Design, 1860
Society of American Artists, 1881
Century Association
EXHIBITED:
Paris Exposition, 1889 (medal), 1900 (medal)
Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, 1901 (gold medal)
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, (gold medal)
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (partial):
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
New York Historical Society, New York City
Timken Art Gallery, San Diego
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