Early American Boy with Hoop Toy Portrait

Circa 1840s: Fine early American folk art paintings of children with their toys are especially desirable, and this spectacular oil portrait of a young man with hoop toy from Androscoggin County, Maine, measures 30" tall by 25" wide and is housed in a 38 1/2" x 33 1/2" frame. When this portrait was sold in 1963, the dealer noted in a letter to his client that the sitter is P. Record of Turner Center, Maine and that the painting was purchased from the sitter's father, who himself was 91 years of age at the time of the sale. The anonymous artist who brought this likeness to life has depicted his sitter with a pleasingly calm and knowing expression while the twilight's last remaining embers glow orange above Maine's silhouetted, tree-lined mountains and the sky spreads its nightly blanket upon the countryside. This is a truly beautiful and skillfully rendered early American oil portrait that will bring joy into any home in which it is displayed.