Folk Art

Antique School Girl Genre Watercolor Painting of Doves, Quiver, Arrows Bow and Roses, All Symbolizing Love & Romance
  • Lovely little early 19th century school girl watercolor painting of a pair of doves within a partial wreath of red flower buds and leaves.  They sit upon a nest.  Beneath the nest a quiver with arrows and a bow are suspended above a rose and two rose buds.   All symbols within the painting point to love and romance. The painting is the type that young girls generally gave to family and friends who kept them in albums.  This one is beautifully framed within a sanded gilt metal oval mat and a wide, flat profile veneered wood frame.  The veneer has been expertly laid so that all wood grain points to the center of the frame.  It really accentuates this tiny painting.  Once I removed the painting from the frame, I found that the artist wrote "Sonnet" in beautiful script below the painting.  The painting title is covered by the oval mat.  The oval mat must have come from a daguerreotype frame because, behind the painting, I found the dag that you see below.  The dag shows darkening from having spent much of its life behind the oval mat.  The painting does not suffer the same type of ultraviolet light damage, meaning it has not been behind this mat for too many years (also lending credence to my assumption that it once resided in a friendship album.  The frame measures 5 3/4" x 6".  The image size is 2 1/4" x 2 3/4".  Circa 1830.

    (#4579)    $495