Mrs. John R. Johnston (before 1857): Art, History and Details

Mrs. John R. Johnston (before 1857) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John R. Johnston (American, 1820–1872).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Active in the worlds of theather and music, Johnston was also a distinguished portrait painter, a remarkable photographer, and one of the supreme photo colorists. By the mid-1850s, he resided in Baltimore where he associated with Jesse H. Whitefurst, who was better known than Matthew Brady and one of the most important studio operators at that time. This portrait is a tour-de-force of personal expression, both on the part of the sitter and the artist. In the angled three-quarter-length pose, Mrs. Johnston, with head tilted, gazes directly toward the camera's lens. For the period, this portrait was extraordinarily spontaneous and informal, personal and sensual. Adding to the photograph's distinction, Johnston printed his wet collodion negative on salted paper, a rarity in early American photography.

Object facts

• Title: Mrs. John R. Johnston
• Date: before 1857
• Creator attribution: John R. Johnston (American, 1820–1872)
• Culture: America
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: salted paper print from wet collodion negative
• Dimensions: Image: 18.8 x 15.1 cm (7 3/8 x 5 15/16 in.); Paper: 18.8 x 16.7 cm (7 3/8 x 6 9/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
• Collection: PH - American 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2002.38

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.