{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Museum purchase with funds given by twenty-one Friends of the University, aided by the Caroline G. Mather Fund","caption":"Thomas Sully (1783–1872; born Horncastle, England; died Philadelphia, PA), Mrs. Reverdy Johnson (Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson), 1840. Oil on canvas; 239 x 150 cm (sheet, sight), 290.8 x 201.9 x 15.2 cm (frame). Museum purchase with funds given by twenty-one Friends of the University, aided by the Caroline G. Mather Fund (y1949-108)","cultureterms":[{"id":2038492,"culture":"American"}],"type":"artobject","dimensionsproposed":"","terms":[{"id":2112753,"term":"stairs","aatid":300003228,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2053145,"term":"oil paintings","aatid":300033799,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2038492,"term":"American","aatid":300107956,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2055723,"term":"portraits","aatid":300015637,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2088280,"term":"women","aatid":300025943,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2055657,"term":"figures (representations)","aatid":300189808,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2056370,"term":"red","aatid":300126225,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2057975,"term":"yellowish white","aatid":300127985,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2087920,"term":"upper class","aatid":300055483,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2059820,"term":"bluish gray","aatid":300129747,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2061154,"term":"white (color)","aatid":300129784,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2128684,"term":"shawls","aatid":300209991,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2132423,"term":"gloves","aatid":300148821,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2044945,"term":"satin","aatid":300132902,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2052977,"term":"paintings","aatid":300033618,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2055694,"term":"landscapes (representations)","aatid":300015636,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2171344,"term":"canvas","aatid":null,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2167780,"term":"oil paint","aatid":300015050,"termtype":"Materials"}],"geography":[{"displaygeography":"Place made: United States, Maryland, Baltimore","code":"Place made","continent":null,"subcontinent":null,"country":"United States","region":null,"state":"Maryland","city":"Baltimore","county":null,"subregion":null,"locale":null,"locus":null,"river":null,"excavation":null,"geoname":null,"location":{"lat":"","lon":""}}],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"frame","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"290.80"},{"element":"frame","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"201.90"},{"element":"frame","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"15.20"},{"element":"sheet","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"239.00"},{"element":"sheet","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"150.00"}],"markings":null,"accessionyear":"1949-01-01","newaccession":0,"makers":[{"id":2625,"displayname":"Thomas Sully","displaydate":"1783–1872; born Horncastle, England; died Philadelphia, PA","datebegin":1783,"dateend":1783,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Thomas Sully, 1783–1872; born Horncastle, England; died Philadelphia, PA","displayorder":1}],"datecomputed":1840,"signed":"Signed and dated middle right: TS 1840.","restrictions":null,"classification":"Paintings","packages":[{"packageid":278831,"name":"10282025-DAY1-ONVIEW"},{"packageid":213904,"name":"Gallery_23-27(Pavilion7)-American"},{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"},{"packageid":190619,"name":"x-COMPLETE-Image_descriptions_HB"},{"packageid":207234,"name":"SAB_Gala2021"},{"packageid":181960,"name":"web_2020_MEB"},{"packageid":204016,"name":"x-COMPLETE-image_descriptions_American_Art_paintings"}],"catalograisonne":null,"classifications":[{"id":2052977,"classification":"paintings"},{"id":2053145,"classification":"oil paintings"}],"exhibitions":[],"cultures":[],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1949-108"],"displaytitle":"Mrs. Reverdy Johnson (Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson)","displayculture":null,"displaymaker":"Thomas Sully, 1783–1872; born Horncastle, England; died Philadelphia, PA","captionhtml":"Thomas Sully (1783–1872; born Horncastle, England; died Philadelphia, PA), Mrs. Reverdy Johnson (Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson), 1840. Oil on canvas; 239 x 150 cm (sheet, sight), 290.8 x 201.9 x 15.2 cm (frame). Museum purchase with funds given by twenty-one Friends of the University, aided by the Caroline G. Mather Fund (y1949-108)","displaydate":"1840","medium":"Oil on canvas","media":[{"id":14355,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1949-108","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"Luna Digitization Project"}],"displayperiod":null,"extended_content":true,"campuscollections":"false","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"Donald D. Egbert, Princeton Portraits, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947).","citation":"Donald D. Egbert, Princeton Portraits, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947)., p. 338-339; fig. 231","date":1947,"id":475,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/740984936"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 236","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004)","citation":"John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 6, fig. 3","date":2004,"id":420,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/57236887"},{"boilertext":"F. J. Mather, \"American paintings at Princeton University,\" Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University 2, no. 2 (1943): p. 2-15.","citation":"F. J. Mather, \"American paintings at Princeton University,\" Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University 2, no. 2 (1943): p. 2-15., p. 6","date":1943,"id":3193,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774197"},{"boilertext":"Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986)","citation":"Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 271 (illus.)","date":1986,"id":1899,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/14244748"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 226 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"American Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1800-1850","dateend":1840,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"Mrs. Reverdy Johnson (Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson)","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"","objectnumber":"y1949-108","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"Sully received one thousand dollars for his life-size portrait of Mary Johnson, making it among the leading Philadelphia artist’s most lucrative commissions. Mary was the wife of the statesman and lawyer Reverdy Johnson. Though opposed to slavery, Reverdy represented the slave-owning defendant in the landmark Dred Scott case of 1857, which held that enslaved persons could not be considered citizens even in free states, a decision that contributed to the Civil War. Sully’s romantic image belies such worldly concerns, depicting Mrs. Johnson in a vaguely classical setting that imparts an air of timelessness to the scene. By contrast, the contemporary Jamaican American artist Renée Cox foregrounds the issue of race in the large photograph installed nearby. Cox substitutes Black men and women for white males in her restaging of Howard Chandler Christy’s 1940 painting Signing of the Constitution, which enshrines a document that counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person and restricted voting to property-owning white men.\n","remarks":"AMER1_23-27_WLA Day 1 Cataloguing"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nThomas Sully’s \"Account of Pictures\" records that his life-size portrait of Mary Mackall Bowie Johnson was executed in Baltimore and Philadelphia during the summer of 1840, and that he received $1,000 for the picture, making it among his most lucrative commissions. Mary was the wife of Reverdy Johnson, U.S. attorney general, senator, and among the most celebrated lawyers of his day. Although personally opposed to slavery, he represented the slave-owning defendant in the infamous Dred Scott case, which confirmed the status of slaves as property and was a significant impetus to the Civil War. Sully’s romantic image of Mrs. Johnson typically betrays no hint of such worldly concerns, depicting her in an elegant and classicizing setting whose indistinctness imparts a desirable air of timelessness to the portrait, a formula that helped make the Philadelphia-based artist one of the most successful of the Jacksonian era. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"Ex-coll. Mrs. Alfred Hodder, Princeton, NJ (descendant of sitter)","remarks":null}],"datebegin":1840,"sortnumber":"1949 108y","published_date":"2026-02-11 09:57:41.064341","objectid":23700,"dimensions":"239.0 x 150.0 cm. (94 1/8 x 59 1/16 in.)\r\nframe: 290.8 x 201.9 x 15.2 cm. (114 1/2 x 79 1/2 x 6 in.)","on_view":true}