The RED BOOK ARTIST
Rare PAIR of Profile Portraits
Likely New Hampshire, ca. 1830.    

The sitters are rendered in three-quarter length on paper, hands in opaque (gouache) white watercolor each holding a red book with distinctive long curled-upward thumbs. The outer hands are also white yet with a subtle blue tint, and rest on their hips.

The stylish gentleman in long black coat (with sharp little spike at the shoulder), with blue vest, the blue echoed in the trim of the lady’s beautiful lace collar which falls over her shoulders. Their heads are hollow-cut backed by black silk, bodies are watercolor with gouache detailing. Hair is painted, hers up in a comb as typically seen in this period.

Presented in mahogany veneered frames which are likely original (backboards replaced), frames about 6 inches x 5. The lady’s background is lighter and a bit puckered indicating that she lost her backboard early on. The gentleman’s is lightly toned from longer contact with its original backboard.

The book the gentleman is holding initialed “HH”, which may be important, as another portrait by the Red Book Artist has pencil inscribed on the back “H.P. Hammons, Concord, NH”. This suggests that H.P Hammons could be the name of the Red Book Artist.

From a private Connecticut collection. For reference see “A Loving Likeness: American Folk Portraits of the Nineteenth Century” The Gallery at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, 1992, the collection of Ray Egan.