Study for "Negro Boy Dancing": The Boy, probably 1877

Provenance

Arthur B. Frost; his son, John Frost; (Joseph Bryant, New York), before 1945; (Harry Shaw Newman, New York), 1945; M. Michelotti; consigned 24 January 1946 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased 18 February 1946 by (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold 15 January 1956 to (Babcock Galleries, New York); Joseph Katz, Baltimore and New York [d. 1958]; his estate, by 1961;[1] his son, Leslie Katz, Brooklyn, by 1963;[2] consigned 13 January 1964 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold 2 January 1965 to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1985 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1951

A Short Survey of American Painting, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1951, unnumbered list.

1961

Thomas Eakins: A Retrospective, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1961-1962, no. 32.

1964

The Portrayal of the Negro in American Painting, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, 1964, no. 53.

1968

American Art from Alumni Collections, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 1968, no. 98, repro.

1986

Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

1991

Thomas Eakins Rediscovered, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1991-1992, no cat.

2006

Young America: Childhood in 19th-Century Art and Culture, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, 2006-2007, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 6.

2016

The Art of American Dance, Detroit Institute of Arts; Denver Art Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, 2016-2017.

Technical Summary

The painting is on a plain-weave fabric that has been lined and covered with a white ground. X-radiography shows tack holes, indicating that after lining the painting was restretched onto a larger stretcher so that the painted edges could be made visible. The lower layers of paint were dry and were worked into the ground; upper layers consist of fluid paint worked wet-into-wet. The sketch was reworked by varnishing the lower layers and applying paint upon the varnish. Quadrant lines were incised into all the layers before the paint was completely dry, slightly breaking the paint. The painting is in good condition. Paint losses show where the painting was folded around the smaller stretcher. The abrasion at the top right appears to have been created by the artist. The varnish has not discolored.

Bibliography

1930

Goodrich, Lloyd. "Thomas Eakins, Realist." Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin 25 (March 1930): 21, no. 67, as Negro Boy Dancing.

1964

Kaplan, Sidney. "Notes on the Exhibition." In The Portrayal of the Negro in American Art. Exh. cat. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, 1964: unpaginated, no. 53.

1966

Kaplan, Sidney. "The Negro in the Art of Homer and Eakins." Massachusetts Review 7 (1966): repro. 116.

1971

Hoopes, Donelson F. Eakins Watercolors. New York, 1971: 44, repro. 48.

1982

Goodrich, Lloyd. Thomas Eakins. 2 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982: 1:repro. 111 (fig. 48).

1988

Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 130, repro.

1989

Honour, Hugh. The Image of the Black in Western Art. 4 vols. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989: 4:189.

1992

American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 166, repro.

1996

Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 167-172, color repro.

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