American School, 19th Century Two Framed Silhouettes of Women.

Description:

American School, 19th Century

Two Framed Silhouettes of Women. Unsigned. The first, attributed to the Red Book Artist, c. 1830, showing a three-quarter length figure with hollow-cut paper head over black fabric with watercolor, gouache, and ink details depicting a woman wearing a white lace collar and upswept hair holding a red covered book, 4 x 3 1/8 in., in a period molded giltwood frame; the other, likely done by the same artist executing lot 4, with hollow-cut paper head over black paper with painted black ink, ruffled collar dress, (tear, loss, stain),3 7/8 x 2 7/8 in., in a period gilt stenciled frame.

Literature: Similar works by the Red Book Artist can be viewed in the exhibition catalog A Loving Likeness: American Folk Portraits of the Nineteenth Century, The Gallery at Bristol-Myers Squib, Princeton, New Jersey, April 4-May 17, 1992, text by Marna Anderson.

The second figure is similar to work done by an unknown artist whose work is illustrated in American Folk Portraits: Paintings and Drawings from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center,published by the New York Graphic Society, Boston, in association with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1981, figures 252 and 253 on p. 257, and in Folk Art Magazine, Fall 2001, on p. 45.
Estimate $1,000-1,500

-the first (Red Book) in very good condition,
-the second with tear through collar and shoulder with loose piece, loss about 1/16 x 3/4 in.c.l. with dark oxidation or stain u.l.

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