Portraits

Antique American School Watercolor Portrait of Beautiful Woman
  • This is a stunning American School watercolor and pencil portrait in a really delightful frame. The young lady wears a green dress with high waist and long sleeves. She wears a ruffed collar and drop earrings. Her hair is pulled back and wound into a loose chignon held by a tortoise shell comb. You can see that the comb is big and the chignon is fairly high on the crown of her head. It shows the coming of the Apollo knot which would become so popular in just a few years. Her face is framed by tight curls. She wears a tortoise shell barrette at her temple. Her rosy cheeks and pink lips show off her softly colored complexion and light-colored eyes. Housed in a beautiful gold-leaf oval frame with roping at the outside edge and beading at the inner cove. Framed size is 7 7/8” x 8 1/8” with a sight size of 3 5/8” x 5”. The paper of the watercolor has been laid down on thick card—but the card registers ph-neutral with a Linco pen and it does not show signs of acid-staining so I’m not terribly worried about it. I believe that the thick card is of the same period as the painting and made of non-acid linen. The frame has some loss of gilding down to the gesso as you can see in the photos. There are a few other dings in the frame but it is so beautiful! There is a stenciled “2S” on the reverse of the frame which I assume is a stock size for the frame-maker. There is also some later pencil writing around the edges of the frame reverse that say “Alfred’s Grandmother” and “My Father’s Mother”. The lady and her frame are circa 1820.

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