19th Century Oil Painting, Portrait of a Baby

Fine Art : Paintings : Oil : France : Listed Artist

 

Measuring about 11 by 14 inches, this is a portrait of a baby, in oil, from the 19th century or earlier. It is signed J. Hess. The good news is that whatever defects due to age that the painting has are clearly visible in the shiny glare of my camera shots across the varnished surface: in real life, these problems are much less apparent. It‘s a very old painting, and you can see, on the back, the canvas and stretcher are very dark with age. On the front, the canvas is not tight so there are one or two sort-of wrinkles in it, and crackling to the varnish. There is a spot about the size of a postage stamp to the right of the body, above the hand, where there is paint loss (but that spot is still dark because it looks like it has been inked in.) Also, there is a smaller spot near the palm, just below that hand, in the same state. If this were mine, I’d do that repair myself since it is only the black background, and all it needs is a bit of varnish to even it out. This has been an entire description devoted to the defects of this painting whilst it is actually in good condition for its advanced age, and the picture itself is amazing.

Item ID: 1307

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