$20,910
Attributed to "Mr. Boyd" (possibly Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area, early 19th century), Four Miniature Profile Portraits, Reportedly of the Radcliffe Family. Unsigned. Oil on panel, the four subjects mounted in two frames, the first with mother wearing a bonnet and seated in a rod-back Windsor chair, facing the father with gray hair and sideburns; the other with daughter seated in the same Windsor chair, dressed in a brown Empire-waisted dress, wearing a tortoiseshell comb in her hair and coral necklace, facing the son wearing a patterned black and white vest, panel 8 3/4 x 6 1/2, aperture 7 1/2 x 5 1/4 in. Condition: Mostly good, the mother with repaired crack in panel and associated retouch, the father with minor spots. Note: "Mr. Boyd" is a name used to refer to a portrait painter, possibly from the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area, whose true identity is not known, but whose paintings have been identified a number of times - one important time with the inscription "Mr. Boyd" on the reverse, from which his "name" derives, but which may have simply been the sitter's name. His body of work apparently includes at least two subjects from New York City.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2014-08-10
