National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill)
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

No overview.

Inscription

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Marks and Labels

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Provenance

Ethel Dixon-Brown [d. c. 1950], Henfield, Sussex;[1] (Sotheby's, London, 7 December 1927, no. 54, as a portrait of Sir Joseph Banks); bought by (Frank T. Sabin, London);[2] sold 27 November 1936 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[3] sold 21 January 1937 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1940 to NGA.

[1] "Miss E. Dixon Brown, Martyn Lodge, Henfield, Sussex" is identified as the pre-sale owner in the records of the firm of Frank T. Sabin, compiled in 1927 (letter from Sidney Sabin dated 6 June 1991, in NGA curatorial files). This is confirmed by a label on the back of the painting. The owner's name has been misread in the past as E. Dina Brown. She was the daughter of the Reverend Dixon Dixon Brown [1826-1901] and his wife Georgina Elizabeth Dixon Brown [d. 1914]; see Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 17th ed., London, 1952: 278-279. Her death date was provided by Irene Dixon-Brown, her nephew's wife (letter of 15 July 1991, in NGA curatorial files). The earlier history of the painting is unknown.

[2] Sotheby and Co., Catalogue of Valuable Pictures by Old Masters of the Italian School; Portraits of the Dutch and English Schools; Pictures and Drawings of the English and French Schools, London, 1927: 14; annotated copy, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.

[3] The date of the sale is recorded in a stockbook owned by Sabin Galleries, Ltd., London (letter from Sidney F. Sabin dated 6 June 1991, in NGA curatorial files). According to M. Knoedler & Co., the painting was consigned to them in October 1936 {letter from Melissa De Medeiros, Knoedler Librarian, 28 May 1991, in NGA curatorial files).

Exhibition History

1938
Portraits of American Indians from Pocahontas to Sitting Bull, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1938, uncatalogued, as Joseph Brant and Colonel Guy Johnson
1967
The Painter and the New World/ Le Peintre et le Nouveau Monde, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1967, no. 85, as Colonel Guy Johnson and Chief Joseph Brant
1975
The European Vision of America, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Cleveland Museum of Art; Grand Palais, Paris, 1975-1977, no. 177, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson
1984
Georgian Canada: Conflict and Culture, 1745-1820, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1984, no. 115, as Portrait of Colonel Guy Johnson

Bibliography

1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 213, as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 249, repro. 10, as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 138, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 131, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1956
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 50, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1958
Hamilton, Milton W. "Joseph Brant - The Most Painted Indian." New York History 39, no. 2 (April 1958): 122-123.
1959
Bouton, Margaret. American Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number One in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 16, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1959
Evans, Grose. Benjamin West and the Taste of His Times. Carbondale, Illinois, 1959: 46, 119 n. 53, pl. 33.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 218, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:376, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1967
Hamilton, Milton W. Sir William Johnson and the Indians of New York. Albany, 1967: 39, repro.
1970
American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 120, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1974
Parry, Ellwood C., III. The Image of the Indian and the Black Man in American Art, 1590-1900. New York, 1974: 31, repro. 33, 34.
1977
Dillenberger 1977, 23-24, pl. 13.
1978
King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 69, pl. 40, as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1980
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 256, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1980
Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 9, 12, 40-41, no. 1, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1981
Williams 1981, 40, color repro. 48, as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 370, no. 523, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1986
Von Erffa and Staley 1986, 59 (color repro.), 523-525, no. 647.
1988
Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: no. 1, color repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1991
King, J. C. H. "Woodlands Artifacts From the studio of Benjamin West, 1738-1820." American Indian Art Magazine 17, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 34-47, repro. 34, figure 1 (color).
1992
American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 377, repro., as Colonel Guy Johnson.
1995
Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 321-328, color repro. 323.
1998
Cheney, Liana de Girolami. “Peace." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:706
1998
Einhorn, Arthur and Thomas S. Abler. "Tattooed Bodies and Severed Auricles: Images of Native American Body Modification in the Art of Benjamin West." in American Indian Art Magazine. [Vol. 23, Number 4]. 1998: 43-47, repro. no. 5.
1998
Reinhardt, Leslie. "British and Indian Identities in a Picture by Benjamin West." Eighteenth Century Studies 31, no. 3 (1998): 283-305.
1999
Zuffi, Stefano and Francesca Castria, La peinture baroque. Translated from Italian by Silvia Bonucci and Claude Sophie Mazéas. Paris, 1999: 387, color repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 290, no. 235, color repro.
2005
Muller, Kevin R. "Pelts and Power, Mohawks and Myth: Benjamin West's Portrait of Guy Johnson." Winterthur Portfolio 40, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 47-75, fig. 3.

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