Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Research Curator
Eastman Johnson was a celebrated American genre and portrait painter as well as co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The artist’s Study for Harriet Hubbard Ayer has been in the collection since 1986 and is a little-known gem.
Johnson found early success as a portrait draftsman. Intent on obtaining further artistic training, Johnson traveled to Europe, first to Düsseldorf where he took classes at the Royal Academy and entered the studio of Emanuel Leutze. During his sojourn in The Hague, Rembrandt and the 17th century Dutch masters held a strong influence on the artist as he refined his academic skills in portraiture and genre painting. Becoming known as the “American Rembrandt”, Johnson favored the quiet interiors of Gerard ter Borch and Pieter de Hooch over raucous paintings like those by Jan Steen. Johnson studied with Thomas Couture in Paris before returning to the US in 1855.
Johnson painted portraits throughout his life as well as domestic genre scenes and rural life. In the 1880s, Johnson shifted to lucrative portrait commissions of industrialists and other notable, wealthy professionals of the Gilded Age.
Herbert C. Ayer, the son of a wealthy iron manufacturer, commissioned three portraits of his wife Harriet, a measure of his success and social status. Two were painted by the young, accomplished artist William Merritt Chase, whose works she may have seen at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Chase’s 1879 portrait of the Chicago socialite conveys Harriet’s level of sophistication as she wears a stylish black lace dress, designed by Charles Frederick Worth that she purchased on her first trip to Europe. Harriet makes direct eye contact with the viewer, extending a sense of confidence.
Chase painted a second, less formal portrait in 1880, in which Harriet wears a gown and bonnet likely from the artist’s antique clothing collection. Although exhibited to positive reviews, Chase’s portrayal of Harriet did not meet with her husband’s approval. Herbert remarked that the only resemblance between his wife and the second painting was her feet. The artist promptly cut off the lower section.
Public Domain
One year later, Herbert sought a third portrait, but this time by Johnson, a more traditional choice, who was twenty years Chase’s elder. Johnson painted two preliminary studies—one, an oil sketch known through a photograph—and the other in FWMoA’s collection. Harriet valued her portraits and held onto them through the years, even when times were economically difficult. Her granddaughter donated the finished portrait by Johnson to the Corcoran Gallery of Art (now at the National Gallery of Art).
FWMoA’s study was a part of Johnson’s estate sale in 1907, listed as The Lady in Gray. The study is for a formal, full-length portrait of Harriet in a parlor room. Johnson retained his typical earth-toned palette and continued interest in light and shadow. The finished portrait is a commanding 72” tall with some cropping of the interior.
In Johnson’s portraits of women during this period, the subjects were usually seated against a plain, neutral background. Instead, Harriet, clothed in a lace trimmed gray dress, leans against a Franklin stove with touches of red from the glowing embers.
During the late 19th century, painters often depicted leisure-class women engrossed in activities in domestic interiors. This followed the generally accepted notions of women’s connection with the home and private spaces, separate from men, who were associated with the public world of work and commerce. Harriet is depicted in the home at the fireside.
A floral arrangement, glass, and porcelain decorative vessels line the mantel, shelves, and lowboy. Objects on display in a portrait can give insight into the sitter, revealing the family’s taste and aesthetic. Harriet was known to fill her Chicago mansion with antiques purchased in Europe. Historians suspect though that she visited Johnson’s summer home in Nantucket, Massachusetts for her sitting.
These traditional portrayals preceded the momentous turns in Harriet’s life just a few years later. Married when she was 17 years old, she separated from Herbert, a womanizer and alcoholic, in 1883; four years later Harriet was granted a divorce and full legal custody of her children, a rarity at that time.
Moving to New York, Harriet worked as a salesperson and interior designer. During one of her buying trips in Paris, she purchased the formula for facial cream purportedly used by Madame Récamier, who was renowned for her beauty and immortalized in paint by Jacques-Louis David. In 1886, Harriet founded Récamier Manufacturing Company. Paving the way for Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder, and Helena Rubinstein, she became the first American woman to successfully establish and manage a cosmetics company. Harriet encountered scandalous business and family related betrayals and was committed to an insane asylum. Emerging from her company’s collapse, she forged a second career as a journalist and published A Complete and Authentic Treatise on the Laws of Health and Beauty in 1899.
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