Oil on paper laid down on paperboard, signed with initials 'E.J.' by the artist Eastman Johnson's wife lower left, lined, with label from The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. 21 1/2 x 25 in., 26 1/2 x 30 in. (frame). Provenance: Mrs. Eastman Johnson, 1907 (sale: American Art Galleries, NY, February 27, 1907); William Brown Cogswell, Syracuse, NY (acquired at the above sale); Misses F. Pearl and Elizabeth Browning, NY, 1921 (possibly bequeathed from the above); John Levy Galleries, NY, 1942; Emily Crane Chadbourne, Stone Ridge, NY, 1952; Acquired as a gift from the above to the present owner, 1953. Exhibited: New York, American Art Galleries, Catalogue of Finished Pictures, Studies and Drawings by the late Eastman Johnson, N.A., 1907, no. 122; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Eastman Johnson, 1824-1906: An American Genre Painter, 1940, no. 47; New York, Douthitt Gallery, Eastman Johnson, 1824-1906: "The Keystone Artist", 1940, no. 5; New York, John Levy Galleries, Exhibition of Eastman Johnson, 1942, no. 9. Literature: William Walton, "East Johnson, Painter," Scribner's Magazine 40, 1906, p. 270; Howard Devree, "New York Exhibition Reviews," Magazine of Art 33 (January 1940), pp. 38-41, 38, illustrated; John I.H. Baur, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824-1906, Brooklyn Museum and Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940, pp. 42, 62, plate XI; Douthitt Gallery, Eastman Johnson, 1824-1906: "The Keystone Artist", New York, 1940, pp. 11, illustrated; Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, p. 248; Patricia Hills, The Genre Painting of Eastman Johnson: The Sources and Development of His Style and Themes, Ph. D. dissertation, New York University, 1973; Patricia Hills, The Genre Painting of Eastman Johnson, New York, 1977, pp. 106-09; Brian T. Allen, Sugaring Off: The Maple Sugar Paintings of Eastman Johnson, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2004, p. 21. Note: Eastman Johnson scholars feel that this work, which has been attributed to Johnson in the past, is only partially painted by the artist. The area at the center is an "insert", or patch, and is by another hand.,