Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

[mtvernon]

I've had this portrait of my GGG for a few years, bestowed upon my by an aunt after I identified who this stranger hanging on her wall was finally. It's great to have but I'm always at a loss when it comes to identifying the medium. I believe it's a charcoal drawing with pastel and gold accents (buttons and epaulets), but would love if someone here better versed than I would be able to identify it, date it (generally), and describe how it was done, as it is photo-realistic. Someone told me it might have been a wall projected image traced over, but I'm not sure. I've seen other examples like it but have yet to see a description of one.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[rogue]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

If it is a large oval photo, it is probably a hand tinted Victorian copy of an original wartime photo. Post war many veterans or their families would have the wartime hard image or cdv copied in a larger format. These were photographs that were then tinted. The soft focus is typical of these, and they may have in fact been touched up with charcoal. During the post WWI years similar photos were very popular, for much the same reasons. memory.
S.Sullivan

[mtvernon]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

It's actually square, although I always thought it ought to be oval. I was pretty sure it couldn't be contemporary with his service due to it being framed in Neb. where he moved post war. Indeed, the focus is very soft. Thanks for the contribution.

[ScottCross]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

If it is a large oval photo, it is probably a hand tinted Victorian copy of an original wartime photo. Post war many veterans or their families would have the wartime hard image or cdv copied in a larger format. These were photographs that were then tinted. The soft focus is typical of these, and they may have in fact been touched up with charcoal. During the post WWI years similar photos were very popular, for much the same reasons. memory.
S.Sullivan

Steve is correct. The technical name for these photographs is "Crayon Portrait", and they are actually photographs. The earlier examples from the late 1860s and 1870s are usually rectangular in shape. A very light photographic image is made on paper, and an artist comes in and either uses pencil, charcoal, chalk, and/or crayons to color it and fill in the details. I actually have one in the archives of my museum, where the photograph was too heavy, so they reused the board it was mounted on and put the lighter, colorized image on the back. We also have the original 1880s cabinet card photograph with the photographer's instructions on the back. It made a good study on how the process is done.

[mtvernon]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Thank you one and all for your contributions to finding an answer, particularly Mr. Cross. I took it to be appraised at an Antiques Roadshow-esque outfit that came to town, and the lady who looked at it thought it was taken from a photograph that was first projected and increased in size onto a wall, traced, and then colored with pastels (I don't know if she meant crayons or pencils). I was a bit skeptical because she was very hurried and pretty short on detail. She did say the frame was crap and it would not be wrong to get it reframed, which I was happy to hear because the frame is pretty unappealing.

[CompanyWag]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Joe,
Don't confuse the word "crayon" with the wax-based crayola that was introduced in 1903. The lady was probably more descriptive using the term "pastel" as a chalky pigment stick capable of the subtle shading and blending that you see in the portrait. The "crayon portrait" undoubtably had to be sealed in some manner after coloring to keep the pigments bound to the paper.

Paul McKee

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Hallo!

They are common around here in antique shops. But NUG they are "civilians" and often of elderly folks. There are pastel colored ones as well as black & white charcoal medium. And they vary, I guess due to the skill or intent of the artists as some look entirely like art portraits while others appear more photograph-like with a little work added to them.

I have one of my great-grandfather done circa 1874-1876.

It is a large oval, about two feet high, wit a faked walnut frame and a curved glass.

(My family considers the image "cursed." In 1934, my 81 year old great-gtrandfather went to shave. He always tested the sharpness of his straight razor by shaving hairs on his wrist. One day he nicked himself. The cut became infected and gangrenous. Pre-penniciin, they needed to amputate the arm. He refused, saying he was born with his arm, he would die with his arm.
A week later he died.
The night before he died, the braided wire holding the picture on the living room wall broke. In the morning his image was found on the floor, and he was found dead in is bed.)

Curt

[mtvernon]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Thanks for the input and the spooky story. That's why you should use your thumbnail as a sharpness indicator!

[ScottCross]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Joe,
All said, this is a great image of one of your ancestors who served during the Civil War. It may not date to the war, but it was made from an original image shortly afterward. A very fine family heirloom!

[minieball]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

As Mr. Sullivan pointed out this is a hand tinted paper copy image. This particular image and others like it were generally made by making a interpositive glass image from an original positve (tintype, ambrotype or Daguerreotype) and by using an solar enlarger or copy camera, a large format negative is made from the interpositive and larger paper copy prints made. These would then be given to colorists at the studio (typically women) to tint using, you guessed it, crayons (oil pastel types) and powdered tinting chalk using fine pencils (brushes). Tinting is truly an art form and you'll see the wide range of quality in a sampling of these images.

Clearly the original image used here for this copy appears to be CW period

However, the crayon photograph should not be confused with a photograph tinted by crayon (oil chalk pastel). The crayon photograph originated in the Daguerreotype era and was named because the edges of the central image, usually a head or head and shoulders portrait, faded away until they merged with the paper on which they were printed, in much the same way as an artist of the day drew portraits in crayon. Because the daguerreotype was an image that was made directly on a silver-coated plate and could not be altered after the exposure was made, the ‘crayon’ effect had to be produced while the portrait was being taken. In 1849 an American photographer, John Whipple, invented this method which he called ‘Crayon Portraiture.’ An opaque screen with a hole in the centre was held between the camera and the sitter and moved both horizontally and vertically while the picture was being formed in the camera, usually a period of from ten to thirty seconds. The screen obscured the area surrounding the sitter and the movement produced a gentle blurring effect at the edges. This was later known as "vignette" and could be done with a number of other photographic methods. One of the ways I accomplish this effect is to cut-out an oval and trim the inside of the oval with triangle cuts. The oval is placed between the subject and camera lens giving the same vignette effect

For the record 'crayon' is a period correct term for colored chalk sticks (typically oil pastels) used long before the Crayola wax versions that we all associate with the name with today.

[mtvernon]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Thank you for the explanation. This is dang interesting stuff and I'm glad I asked. I took the image to a framing shop in town whose owner happens to be a Master Certified Picture Framer and the current president of the Northern California Chapter of Professional Picture Framers Association. When we opened the back of the frame she found that the image was glued down to a kind of card stock or heavy type of paper. She sighed sadly and noted that eventually this will lead to the destruction of the image and there's nothing really to be done about it because trying to remove it would be like trying to separate the foil from the paper of a gum wrapper. Some options to consider included getting a high resolution copy made and reproducing it, placing the original in a closet somewhere all packed up as best as possible. I don't think this would arrest the decay (which is not detectable by my ingnorant eyes at this point) so I'm not sure about the merits of preserving it in the dark versus getting a UV (and other stuff) protective 'glass' put over it and generally displaying it where the sun won't hit it. Any thoughts, people?

[minieball]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Well I'm sure the framing person you mention was worried about the acid content of the paper mounting board that to which the image is adhered. And yes placing under archival (UV-block) glass should mitigate having to place it in a dark closet, etc. One option would be to place the image (with an air space between the front glass and the image) between two pieces of archival glass, sealing the glass-spacer-image-glass sandwich with Filmoplast P-90 tape.

I would strongly recommend that you contact a competent photographic conservator for expert advice before doing anything. I suggest starting with the George Eastman House museum in Rochester, NY.

Good luck in your efforts, Joe

[ScottCross]

Re: Can anyone identify the medium of this portrait?

Ditto to what Tod said, but I would also add that a professional paper conservator could deacidify the paper backing (I've also seen these glued to board or canvas), and might recommend other needed conservation that could help preserve the image. Sorry, all the conservators that I work with are in the upper midwest, but I'm sure you can find any number in California on-line.