Edwardian Portrait, Mauve Frame

Artist unknown

The Work

A young woman with lighter, wavy hair, shown in profile, her chin slightly raised and her gaze more direct than her pair. Her shoulder is left bare. The image has the soft, romantic quality typical of Edwardian portrait photography, printed in sepia and given a dreamlike, almost painterly finish rather than the sharper look of a straightforward photograph.

Year: Early 1900s
Medium: Sepia photomechanical print
Image size: 185 mm x 240 mm
Framed size: 350 mm x 430 mm
Catalogue: 0076

Provenance

Picked up in an antique shop at some point over the years. I've been through so many, I couldn't tell you exactly which one.

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Framing

Oak plywood, cut to shape on a scroll saw, with a garland of flowers and leaves applied around the oval opening in compo, a moulded composition of whiting, glue and linseed oil pressed into detailed floral forms while soft, then gilded and finished by hand. It was a technique that let ordinary furniture and frame makers achieve carved looking detail without the time or cost of actual hand carving, and it was everywhere in home decor around the turn of the century. Here it's been tinted a soft mauve.

Portraits like this were a genuine feature of Edwardian home decoration, produced in large numbers and often sold in matched pairs to hang together. They weren't commissioned portraits of anyone in particular; they were decorative, sentimental images, the sort of thing found in a parlour or bedroom of the period, valued for their mood and their craftsmanship rather than for who the sitter was.

Paired with a second portrait, a different woman facing the other way, in a matching frame tinted blue — see Edwardian Portrait, Blue Frame.