DOI Heft:
Nr. 334 (March 1925)
DOI Artikel:Nelson, Helen Charlotta: Early American primitives
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0197
mceRHACioriAL
time and proceeded to paint likenesses
of those who would pay him his very
modest fee. That he received popular
support is evinced by the large number
of his works to be found in the locality.
A few words regarding the unique
methods of "limners," as such men as
this itinerant painter were called, will
throw light upon the astounding simi-
larity of the pictures they left behind
them, in respect to hands, bodies and
accessories, the only markedly different
character is in the faces. The "artist"
arrived in town with a supply of stock
portraits, some of masculine and some
of feminine gender. Little, if anything,
save the faces was left unpamted. The
sitter paid a fee of from twenty-five to
fifty dollars to have his or her face
inserted, and got off with very little
posing. ' In the comparatively few cases
where subjects posed for their own
bodies, said bodies were finished off in
very much the same stiff conventional
manner as those prepared in advance.
Imagine the advantages for him or her "MRS. JULiA fuller barnum" property of miss mary hopson
who chose an ensemble merely minus
the countenance! A man with a secret urge smart facade could, by choosing a lay figure from
toward Beau Brummehsm but with a none too the limner's supply, hand down his likeness in
immaculate linen set off by the latest
mrs. florilla miller raymond property of mrs. haxton r r I I I T J
style oi stock, correctly arranged. Vo-
luminous females and those of limited
wardrobe must have been thrilled to
death, as those of today might express
it, by the opportunity of choosing a
body of graceful, slender proportions,
and a cap and collar of undreamed of
perfection as to lace and starch, or glossy
ringlets with never a rebellious hair;
neck and shoulders of ideal line and pro-
portion, and hands that spoke never a
word of the domestic labor which played
a large part in the lives of the early
colonists and their descendants.
Included in our group were portraits
of four married couples and the hands
of the eight individuals presented are
varied with but two positions. Super-
ficially the caps of the women are very
similar but close observation reveals a
slight variation in the elaborate pattern
of the laces or the fall of a ruching, or
the placement of the loop of a crisp
organdie bow. In six of the portraits of
women one finds an identical placing of
the head on one side of the canvas,
march I925
Jour Jijty-seven
time and proceeded to paint likenesses
of those who would pay him his very
modest fee. That he received popular
support is evinced by the large number
of his works to be found in the locality.
A few words regarding the unique
methods of "limners," as such men as
this itinerant painter were called, will
throw light upon the astounding simi-
larity of the pictures they left behind
them, in respect to hands, bodies and
accessories, the only markedly different
character is in the faces. The "artist"
arrived in town with a supply of stock
portraits, some of masculine and some
of feminine gender. Little, if anything,
save the faces was left unpamted. The
sitter paid a fee of from twenty-five to
fifty dollars to have his or her face
inserted, and got off with very little
posing. ' In the comparatively few cases
where subjects posed for their own
bodies, said bodies were finished off in
very much the same stiff conventional
manner as those prepared in advance.
Imagine the advantages for him or her "MRS. JULiA fuller barnum" property of miss mary hopson
who chose an ensemble merely minus
the countenance! A man with a secret urge smart facade could, by choosing a lay figure from
toward Beau Brummehsm but with a none too the limner's supply, hand down his likeness in
immaculate linen set off by the latest
mrs. florilla miller raymond property of mrs. haxton r r I I I T J
style oi stock, correctly arranged. Vo-
luminous females and those of limited
wardrobe must have been thrilled to
death, as those of today might express
it, by the opportunity of choosing a
body of graceful, slender proportions,
and a cap and collar of undreamed of
perfection as to lace and starch, or glossy
ringlets with never a rebellious hair;
neck and shoulders of ideal line and pro-
portion, and hands that spoke never a
word of the domestic labor which played
a large part in the lives of the early
colonists and their descendants.
Included in our group were portraits
of four married couples and the hands
of the eight individuals presented are
varied with but two positions. Super-
ficially the caps of the women are very
similar but close observation reveals a
slight variation in the elaborate pattern
of the laces or the fall of a ruching, or
the placement of the loop of a crisp
organdie bow. In six of the portraits of
women one finds an identical placing of
the head on one side of the canvas,
march I925
Jour Jijty-seven