Featured question about antique miniature portrait

I have recently bought an antique miniature portrait and have been curious about it. As I don't know much about portrait paintings, I'm hoping perhaps someone here will be able to help me shed some light on it.

The miniature is hand-painted and is in (what seems to me) a Georgian frame. On the right side it is signed "Kucharski" or perhaps "Kucharsky" - a bit hard to tell. Since acquiring the portrait I have done a little research as I was wondering about the lady in the portrait (love her!), and have come across this image reproduced many times in various ways in the late Victorian / Edwardian period. It appears to be the Countess Potecka by Alexander Kurcharski.

I imagine that this is a very well done copy, but until now I was under the impression that miniature copies of famous paintings were mostly done in later Victorian times and not so much in the Georgian period. Were copies of famous paintings done in miniature form in the Georgian times as well? It is a Georgian frame the portrait is in, is it not? I don't know very much about it so maybe I'm wrong about that.

Secondly, I have seen miniature copies of famous paintings signed with the name of the artist who made the copy (with sometimes "after so-and-so" naming the original artist), but was it also perhaps the case sometimes that the miniature would be signed in the name of the original artist without mentioning the artist who made the copy? Would a miniature copy of say, the Duchess of Devonshire portrait by Gainsborough ever be signed just "Gainsborough" without the name of the miniature artist?

Lastly, what would this type of paining be called - do you think it is a watercolour or something else? I have not opened the frame and it has glass covering the front.

Thank you very much for any insight you may be willing to share! I really appreciate it.

 

I think they're still being done today, maybe just not in the volume of back then.

You can probably find any variation in signing that you can imagine somewhere.

 

Hello Aureliel,
It's a portrait of a very interesting person. You are right that it is Countess Potocka. But her life story is amazing. Her name is Sofia (Zofia). She was a Greek courtesan. Because of her outstanding beauty she had a lot of high ranking lovers. And eventually she managed to marry a Polish count Potocky and became Countess Potocka. I know a lot about her as her husband had huge estates in the territory of modern Ukraine and they lived here for a long time. About 80 km from Kyiv there is a gorgeous park under the name Sofiyivka. It was built by count Potocky as a present and manifestation of his love to her. I visited that park a few times. It's considered to be one of seven wonders of Ukraine.
You mentioned the name of the artist, Alexandr Kurcharsky. Never heard this name. The portrait below was made by Italian artist Salvatore Tonchi. This is the most realistic portrait of her. It was copied many times.
If you ever would like to come to Ukraine, I will gladly show the places related to them. There are about 15 Potocky palaces in Ukraine.

 

Such a romantic story, Natasha, thank you. And she was indeed a beautiful girl.
Beautiful park too, it looks so tranquil.

 

Natasha - very interesting.

Aureleil -
I think yours is a copy of the portrait Natasha is showing. The frame looks early 1900s.

Could we see a picture of the back please.

 

Certainly! It's just brown paper on the back. Thank you weighing in on the topic!

 

The information provided with the print in the Philadelphia Museum of art is interesting & rather confusing. They say the original is a pastel by an unknown artist, give Vigée-LeBrun as their top choice, then list artists to whom it was formerly attributed, including Kucharsky.

I see that KPM Porcelain used this image a lot & that there is a concavity on the back of your piece. Is it heavy enough to be a porcelain plaque?

 

Oh that is very interesting, thank you for your reply and the link! Wow, I had no idea there was quite so much confusion about the original painting, especially as it has been reproduced so often.

I don't think it's heavy enough to be porcelain, and also from up close and glancing at it from the side it seems the brush strokes are different than from how they would look on porcelain. But then, I'm only basing that on the two porcelain miniature jewellery pieces I have (jewellery is more were my knowledge lies - really don't know much about paintings and miniatures!) as they look quite different.

I kind of feel like opening up the back just to see what it was painted on and perhaps see if there is any other information on the back. Would that be terribly sacriligious?

 

Maybe it was one of these that led to the original being attributed to Kucharsky, then they (the museum world) found others with different signatures & realized that some or all were copies & had to rethink it?

I was thinking it might be a high quality print, but concavity suggests not.

 

The brown paper looks like a newer backing.
If you want to take it off you wouldn't ruin anything. You can always glue another piece back on.

I suspect you will find that the picture is a print and the concave is from the shape if the glass.

 

Thank you for your reply! The brown paper is definitely newer, as is the white piece of cardboard someone put behind the miniature to keep it in place, which I saw upon opening it up (thank you for your advice - I went ahead and did it this morning to have peek behind the brown paper .

However, behind that the frame looks far older and the glass appears to be hand-cut as it is not entirely the same shape everywhere. The miniature is hand-painted and not a print. I didn't think it was only because all the reproductions look fairly similar, based on the large painting, whereas there are some things that are a bit different in this one. But as I wasn't entirely sure I got it out to check. You can clearly see the brush strokes up close and some variation in the surface where the paint got on it a bit thicker in place (sorry not sure how to best describe it).

I've taken some photos to try to show this. The material the painting is on is thin and somewhat see-through when held up against the light - could this be a thin piece of ivory perhaps?

 

It seems the concavity was because of the hollow in the wood behind the miniature. I got it out this morning and have posted some photos in the post before this one. It's hand-painted and seems to be on some kind of thin wafer - ivory perhaps?

This takes me back to my original question. Do you know if it was at all common for copy artists to sign a miniature with the name of the artist who made the original, rather than their own? For example, would a miniature copy of the portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough ever have been signed only "Gainsborough" without the name of the copy artist? (The ones I've seen usually have the copy artist's name, sometimes with "after Gainsborough" added).

Long story short - do you think there is a tiny chance this could be by Kucharsky himself, or would it likely have been someone else that made it as a copy and signed it Kucharsky instead of their own name, perhaps under the impression, as was the art world as a whole for some time, that he was the painter of the original painting? The latter seems more likely to me but then I just really don't know.

Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate your thoughts on this!

 

These were usually painted on ivory, later on celluloid. Apart from the frame being plain ebonised wood, the construction is exactly the same, oval glass, thin brass tabs to hold the image and backing, as the so called piano key miniatures (probably mentioned on this board somewhere) that date from the late 19th C in deliberate imitation of 18th C types.
They are usually well painted and are now antiques in their own right, but at the time, the use of pages from 18th C books to cover the backs instead of plain paper indicates a deliberate effort to mislead about the age.

I have sold a large number of them in my ebay days.

 

PS. Any signatures have no significance on these pieces. This one does seem to refer to an original artist but that is as far as it goes.

 

Thanks very much for this! It's great to learn more about this one, as well as miniatures in general. They're fascinating!

I love this one (whatever its age) simply because I'm drawn to the picture - the lady looks so wistful. I have seen pictures of the piano key miniatures, mostly copies of other famous paintings online, and agree it seems this one fits right in with those. Thanks again!

 

Totally agree with what AF said.

 

I was going to ask if it could be Celluloid before getting to afantiques comment including this as a possibility. This is what makes me think it is:



The lines are too continuous, too nearly straight & too nearly parallel for ivory, which for this purpose would have been cut to a little plaquette that was thicker than you are describing. Suspect Kucharsky (at least a Kucharsky) painted this one but did not originate the composition, if Philadelphia is at all correct.