Profile Portrait of a Girl
Attributed to the
'Red Book Artist' 

Probably Massachusetts or New York, ca. 1830.
Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper, with hollow-cut head backed by black paper or silk. The girl is shown in ¾ length profile, with deep GREEN dress with lace border and necklace. This portrait is attributed to the "Red Book Artist" as pictured in the exhibition catalog “A Loving Likeness: American Folk Portraits of the Nineteenth Century” The Gallery at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, 1992.

The sitter holds a red book, faces right, has an overly long thumb resting on the red book, the hands are done with opaque white paint (in this case her non-book hand that rests on her hip is blue) and is hollow cut with watercolor body. This example is further embellished as the girl is holding a colorful reticule.

Presented in an period painted frame with eglomise panel, frame about 6 inches x 4 5/8. Colors still strong, with minor background toning and paper puckering.

Just acquired from a private Northeast collection where it has been since the 1960’s.