Figure 1.--This American boy about 1890 wears a black suit with a red bow, white blouse, black long stockings, and black shoes. This looks to be a Fauntleroy jacket, although it is not a cklassic cut-away jacker with a connecting tab. The portrait because of the pose looks to be painted from a photographic portrait, perhaps at a photographic studio. The portrait appears to have been done on a canvas. Put your cursor on the image to see the back.

Later in the 1860s we notice some artists virtually painting over photographs. Here we are sometimes unsure if it is a painted over photograph or perhaps a painted executed from a photographic portrait. Or even a painted portrait done in the style of a photographic portrait. This practice continued into the early 20th century. We have little information on this process. We note several examples of this, but it does not seem to have been very popular. This may have been that even though the process added color, it often masked many of the details of the photograph. The painters doing this for the most part had limited artistic skills. We assume that this was also done in other countries, however, all of our examples at this time are American. We are not always sure if the availavle images are painted over photographs or not. The portrait here may be a painted over photograph (figure 1). It is large (16 x 20 in), but not beyond the size a studio could print. It certainly is done in the style of a ohotograph. We have seen countless photographic portraits with this pose. What confuses us is that some of the detail such as the chair or hands are much less detailed than an actual photographic portrait. We don't quite understand why you would paint on a photograph and then cover up the detail. A HBC contributor specializing in old photographs tells us, "I still think that it is a painted-over photo. I have seen several examples with heavy colour adding or even added painted things on the photo." The dealer writes, "I believe this is painted over an original photo and the medium is either watercolor or gouache or a combination of both."

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Created: March 18, 2004
Last updated: 1:02 AM 7/5/2007