Thy Word is a Lamp unto My Feet and a Light unto My Path
Framed: 27 3/4 x 32 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches (70.49 x 81.92 x 8.26 cm)
- 216
The American Collection of Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, November 10–28, 1970, no. 66.
Genre, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., April 5–May 15, 1983, no. 42 (as Reading the Bible—Nantucket).
Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Painting, 1840–1910, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, N.Y., May 18–July 14, 1986, no. 4 (as Reading the Bible).
Eastman Johnson: Painting America, Brooklyn Museum of Art, October 29, 1999–February 6, 2000; San Diego Museum of Art, February 25–May 21, 2000; Seattle Art Museum, June 8 – September 10, 2000, no. 99.
In the early 1850s, Johnson studied art in Europe, where 17th-century Dutch painters of everyday life influenced him. His talent earned him the nickname the American Rembrandt. Returning to the United States in 1855, Johnson specialized in images of rural life, which enjoyed wide acclaim in an increasingly industrialized America.
to Luther G. Tillotson, New York, February 1881;
to Emma A. Tillotson, New York, by bequest, 1885;
to estate of Emma A. Tillotson, New York, 1908;
to (Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, January 21–22, 1909, lot 122);
private collection, Bernardsville, N.J., until 1962;
to (Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1962);
to (Hirschl & Adler Galleries, with Newhouse Galleries, New York, March 1962);
to Pauline Stanbury (Mrs. Norman B.) Woolworth, New York and Winthrop, Me., June 1962;
to (Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, 1979);
to NAMA, 1979.
“Fine Arts: Twenty-first Annual Exhibition of the Artists’ Fund Society—Private View,” New York Herald, January 30, 1881, 14.
“The Artists’ Fund Exhibition,” New York World, January 30, 1881, 4.
“The Artists’ Fund Exhibition,” New York Evening Post, January 31, 1881, 4.
“Artists’ Fund Pictures: A Very Creditable List of Pictures from Well-Known Painters,” New York Times, February 2, 1881, 5.
“Artists’ Fund Exhibition,” Art Interchange 6 (February 3, 1881), 25.
“Fine
Arts,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February
3, 1881, 1.
“The Artist Fund Exhibition,” Studio and Musical Review 1 (February 5, 1881), 22.
“Fine Arts,” New York Herald, February 9, 1881, 6 (as Thy Word Is a Lamp unto My Feet).
“The Artists’ Fund Pictures: Last Night of the Sale, with a Total Revenue of $17,206,” New York Times, February 9, 1881, 5.
“The Artist Fund Society of New York,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 10, 1881, 3 (as Thy Word Is a Lamp unto My Feet).
“The Artists’ Fund Sale,” New York Evening Post, February 10, 1881, 4 (as Thy Word Is a Lamp unto My Feet).
“The Artists’ Fund,” New York Tribune, February 10, 1881, 8.
M. G. Van Rensselaer, “Pictures in New York. The Artists’ Fund Society,” American Architect and Building News 9 (February 26, 1881), 100.
“The Artists’ Fund Society,” Art Journal 7 (February 1881), 63.
“Exhibitions and Sales,” American Art Review 2 (1881), 215 (as Thy Word Is a Lamp unto My Feet).
Catalogue of the Twenty-first Annual Sale of Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Artists’ Fund Society, 1881), 15 (as Thy Word Is Lamp unto My Feet and a Light unto My Path).
Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, New York, January, 21–22, 1909, lot 122.
The American Collection of Mrs. Norman B. Woolworth, exh. cat. (New York: Coe Kerr Gallery, 1970), 40.
“Gallery’s Latest Acquisition to Be Unveiled Today at the Forum,” Kansas City Times, April 19, 1979, 8C (as Reading the Bible).
Ralph T. Coe, “Valuable Gifts,” letter to the editor, Kansas City Star, May 7, 1980, 18A.
Ross E. Taggart, “American Painting in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri,” Antiques 122 (November 1982), 1032, 1038 (as Reading the Bible).
Robert A. DiCurcio, Art on Nantucket: The History of Painting on Nantucket Island (Nantucket, Mass.: Nantucket Historical Association, in cooperation with the Nantucket Historical Trust, 1982), 134–35 (as Reading the Bible).
Genre, exh. cat. (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 5, 16, 30 (as Reading the Bible—Nantucket).
Donald Hoffmann, “Kemper Family Donates $1.5 Million Portrait,” Kansas City Star, October 12, 1986, 12A (as Reading the Bible).
Lee M. Edwards et al., Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Painting, 1840–1910, exh. cat. (Yonkers, N.Y.: Hudson River Museum, 1986), 34, 37, 142 (as Reading the Bible).
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 74–75 (as Reading the Bible).
Lesley Carol Wright, “Men Making Meaning in Nineteenth-Century American Genre Painting, 1860–1900,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1993, 67, 281 (as Reading the Bible).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 237.
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933–1993 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 100.
Teresa A. Carbone and Patricia Hills, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, exh. cat. (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, in association with Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1999), 222–23, 263.
Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1:353–357, 2:147–148.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 166.
