American School, 19th Century Portrait of a Woman and Two Children.

Description:

American School, 19th Century

Portrait of a Woman and Two Children. Unsigned. Watercolor, pencil, and ink on paper, c. 1830, depicting a woman seated on a chair wearing a frilly white lace bonnet, tied with a blue ribbon, a fanciful blue, red, and yellow striped dress with white lace collar; she is holding a young girl in her lap who is wearing a white bonnet and pink dress and blue shoes, holding a pink rose in one hand; a boy stands beside them wearing a white top hat with a blue ribbon at the crown, a plaid dress and pantalets and holds a whip in one hand and a toy horse and cart in the other; they are on a yellow patterned floor before red drapery with gold fringe and tassel against a dark background, 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 in., in a period grain painted frame. Condition: Laid down, repaired tear at center, toning.

Literature: This group portrait is attributed to the same artist who painted the portrait of Emma Clark in the Collection of the Abby Aldrich Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia, and is illustrated and discussed in American Folk Portraits: Paintings and drawings from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center; New York Graphic Society, 1981, p. 250, plate 241. It shares similar characteristics with others by the same artist including a "stippled mat, glossy black backgrounds, a palette of primary colors, high contrast in the drawing and coloring, and a minute stippling or hatching technique employed in the rendering of the facial features."

Also four other portraits by the same artist were sold in the American Folk Art collection of Howard and Catherine Feldman at Sotheby's, June 1988, lots 111 and 155. Photocopies of these portraits are included with the lot.

Provenance: Don Walters.
Estimate $8,000-12,000

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