Important American Folk Art Memorial Portrait

Circa 1850-1875: This important 11 3/4" x 15 3/8" mixed media (oil, watercolor, and graphite) portrait of a family in mourning is one of eight known "memorial pictures" by the same as of yet unidentified mid 19th century American folk art painter. Other examples in this Civil War era series are housed in the Fenimore Art Museum, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art and have passed through the hands of highly regarded collectors Jean Lipmann and Maxim Karolik. Housed in a period, if not original, 15 3/4" x 19 3/8" lemon gold frame with early wavy glass, this painting features five people, the young girl and seated woman receiving flowers, a common practice at wakes and funerals. Even the curtains are bedecked with blooms. The painting itself is awash with color and movement, giving it a richness that enhances the simple, naively done faces worked in graphite. Condition is generally excellent with typical foxing as photographed. Provenance: Donald Moylan Collection