Portrait of a Young Woman Henrietta Dering Johnston Columbia Museum of Art
| Henrietta Johnston | |
|---|---|
| Known for | Pastel |
| Notable work | in museums:
|
| Movement | Rococo |
| Patron(southward) | William Rhett and others |
Henrietta de Beaulieu Dering Johnston (c. 1674[1] – March 9, 1729) was a pastelist of uncertain origin active in the English colonies in N America from approximately 1708 until her death. She is both the primeval recorded female person artist and the get-go known pastelist working in the English colonies,[2] and is the first portraitist known to have worked in what would become the southern United States.[3]
Life [edit]
Both the engagement and place of Johnston's birth are unknown; it has been suggested, and is mostly accustomed, that she was born in northwestern French republic, near the boondocks of Rennes.[ane] Her parents, both French Huguenots, were Francis[1] (perhaps Cézar)[four] and Suzanna de Beaulieu, and the family immigrated to London in either 1685[four] or 1687.[1] [notation ane] In 1694 Henrietta married Robert[1] (possibly William)[4] Dering, fifth son of Sir Edward Dering, 2nd Baronet,[ commendation needed ], and his wife Mary; she and her husband so moved to Republic of ireland. It was during this fourth dimension that Johnston began to draw pastels. Her earliest portraits depicted a number of powerful people to whom she was related by marriage; among these were John Perceval, after to get Earl of Egmont, and one of the Earls of Barrymore.[1] Her primeval surviving pastel dates to 1704.[4]
Dering's husband died in almost 1704, leaving Henrietta a widow with two daughters. In 1705 she married again, this time to Anglican clergyman Gideon Johnston, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin so serving every bit the vicar at Castlemore.[i] Two years subsequently, he was appointed past the Social club for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to serve every bit commissary of the Church of England in North and South Carolina and the Bahama Islands. He was also to serve as rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church building in Charleston.[2] The couple's time in the colonies was hard; Johnston was frequently writing the Society to request payment of his bacon, which was frequently delayed,[1] and their lives were further hampered by disease, lack of supplies, and distance from family.[ii] In i of his messages to his patron Gilbert Burnet, written in 1709, Johnston mentions that "were it non for the assistance my wife gives by drawing of Pictures (which can last but a footling time in a identify so sick peopled) I should not be able to live", indicating that Henrietta had again taken up her drawing to augment the couple's income. Another letter, dated a year later, reveals that she had run out of drawing materials and suffered "a long and tedious Sickness".[2] Johnston made ane return trip to England, in 1711–1712; her married man, likewise, returned there once, from 1713 to 1715. He died in a boating blow in 1716, not long later on returning to Charleston.[2]
Piffling is known of Johnston's later life in the colonies. She is known to have traveled at some point to New York City, every bit four portraits dated 1725 exist depicting members of a family from that city.[note 2] She returned to Charleston at some time earlier her expiry in 1729.[1]
Johnston and her 2nd husband are buried together in the cemetery of St. Michael'south Episcopal Church in Charleston. One of her daughters by her first wedlock, Mary Dering, later became lady-in-waiting to the daughters of George II.[1]
A suggestion has been made that Johnston was related to the painter and dancing master William Dering, who migrated to Charleston from Williamsburg, Virginia in 1749, only this is not more often than not accustomed.[2]
Style [edit]
It is unknown whether or not Johnston studied painting and drawing; still, given the sophistication of her piece of work, it is likely that she did indeed receive some grade of grooming. Similarities betwixt her pastels and the works of Irish gaelic creative person Edmund Ashfield and of Edward Luttrell indicate that she may take studied with them at some indicate.[4]
Pierre Bacot, circa 1708 –10
In pose and coloring, many of Johnston'due south portraits strongly resemble those of Sir Godfrey Kneller, which at the time were greatly in mode in the Britain and the colonies.[1] Her pastels from Ireland are drawn in deep globe tones, while those from her fourth dimension in Due south Carolina are by and large lighter and smaller, due probable to the precious nature of her materials, which had to exist imported. The Irish works, which show the most attention to particular of all her works, draw sitters at three-quarter length, every bit exercise the earliest of her Carolina pastels.[iv] Johnston's American female subjects are usually shown wearing chemises, while the male person subjects are drawn mostly in street clothes; some of the latter are depicted wearing armor.[i] Each bailiwick is shown sitting erect, with the head frequently turned at a slight angle from the body and towards the viewer. The faces are typically dominated past large oval eyes.[1] Works dating to after her second married man's expiry are less finished; details of clothing are less well-defined and colors are less saturated, suggesting either that the artist was running out of materials or that she was working at greater speed to complete commissions.[4]
Mrs. Pierre Bacot (Marianne Fleur Du Gue), circa 1708 –10
Johnston normally signed her portraits on their wooden bankroll,[two] noting her name, the location of completion, and the appointment of completion in order. A typical signature is the inscription on the contrary of her portrait of Philip Perceval: Henrietta Dering Fecit / Dublin Anno 1704. [1] Johnston was near exclusively a portraitist; the only landscapes attributed to her manus are the backgrounds of a pair of children's portraits from New York, which are also her but known portraits of children.[4]
Nigh 40 portraits by Johnston are known to survive; many have preserved their original frames and backboards, on which her signature may exist found.[four] These mostly depict members of her social circle and, later, of her husband's Charleston congregation, such as Colonel William Rhett. Many of her South Carolina portraits describe members of Huguenot families that had settled in the New Earth, including the Prioleaus, Bacots (including Pierre Bacot[five] and his first married woman Marianne Fleur Du Gue[half-dozen]) and duBoses (including Judith DuBose). Today, a number of her works are held by the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston,[1] which has adult an interactive online exhibition dedicated to her piece of work;[vii] other pieces may be seen in the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Greenville County Museum of Art.[ane] Johnston is not known to have worked in oils, but 1 of her portraits was copied at some signal by Jeremiah Theus.[4]
Ix portraits, each depicting members of the Southwell and Perceval families, were owned past American preservationist Jim Williams and displayed at his Mercer Firm in Savannah, Georgia. Seven are inscribed "Dublin, Ireland" and are dated from 1704 to 1705.[viii] They were put upwardly for sale by Sotheby's in 2000, seven with their original frames.[nine] Williams protected them from the low-cal in an upstairs dressing room where the shutters were kept closed.[eight]
Notes and references [edit]
- ^ Miles instead states that she was born Henrietta de Branlien in either England or Republic of ireland; she does, still, agree with the theory that the artist was of Huguenot origin.
- ^ The family is that of Colonel John Moore, formerly of South Carolina; what link may have existed betwixt them and Johnston is unknown.
- ^ a b c d e f 1000 h i j one thousand fifty m n o p "Henrietta Johnston at the S Carolina Encyclopedia". Scencyclopedia.org. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2014-01-nineteen .
- ^ a b c d e f m Richard H. Saunders; Ellen Gross Miles; National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Establishment) (1987). American colonial portraits, 1700–1776. Published past the Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Portrait Gallery. ISBN978-0-87474-695-2.
- ^ Elisabeth Louise Roark (2003). Artists of Colonial America. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 91–. ISBN978-0-313-32023-one.
- ^ a b c d due east f g h i j Gerard C. Wertkin (2 August 2004). Encyclopedia of American Folk Art . Routledge. pp. 309–. ISBN978-ane-135-95615-viii.
- ^ "Pierre Bacot past Henrietta Johnston". Metropolitan Museum of Art . Retrieved thirty May 2019.
- ^ "Mrs Pierre Bacot (Marianne Fleur Du Gue) by Henrietta Johnston". Metropolitan Museum of Art . Retrieved 30 May 2019.
- ^ Henrietta Johnston Interactive Archived 2013-11-05 at the Wayback Machine. At the Gibbes Museum of Fine art. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
- ^ a b "MERCER Business firm, SAVANNAH. THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE JAMES A. WILLIAMS. CONTENTS TO BE SOLD By SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK ON Oct 20" - Sothebys
- ^ "Notable Homes: Mercer Firm" - The Devoted Classicist, December 12, 2011
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Johnston
0 Response to "Portrait of a Young Woman Henrietta Dering Johnston Columbia Museum of Art"
Post a Comment