3 Ballerina Drawings

Picked these up at a local thrift shop over the weekend. One painting and 2 what I think are 2 pastel drawings. I have a few questions about these.

1. The painting is a copy of Renoir's The Dancer, signed W. Parnell '20. The 2 drawings are signed W. Parnell '97. Do you think that these are from 1920 and 1897?

2. There is slight variation in the signature on the painting compared to the drawings. If they are the same and the time periods are correct, there could be a variation in signature after 23 years.

3. Does anyone know this artist? Any help is appreciated.

 

nice art work......1997 is more like it.....

 

Love ballet art. Always wanted to be a ballerina, but was not to be.

 

Bet he was born in '20.

Debora

 

The pointe shoes in the '97 paintings are modern, not consistent with 1897 & according to this

https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/fashion/the-complete-history-of-the-tutu-1.768301

that style of classical tutu was not used until the 1950s.

 

My initial twitch was also 1997, but I'm having second thoughts. Can we see the full frames and the backs of all the pieces?

I don't think much can be ascertained from the first signature as it looks like it has been drawn over at least once and possibly twice.

I wonder if the last signature isn't "W F Parnell"... the second sig almost looks like "F W Parnell," but it's a bit scribbly.

Willing to share the geographic location where they were found? Might help to sort it, might not.

I suspect adept hobbyist with academic art training.

 

The first painting looks like it was labeled rather than signed & someone has gone over the yellow writing with black, choosing not to reinforce the '20.

 

Thanks for all of the replies. Here are some picture of the backs, but I doubt they will be helpful, the drawings look like they were probably done in the last 20-30 years. They were found in Lancaster County, PA. The one drawing has a framers tag from Florida.

 

The frames say a lot about when the pieces were framed... not 1897.

I wonder if the "'20" is the artist's way of saying, "I've never been at the beginning of a new century and I don't know how to date a painting done in the year 2000?"

 

my thoughts exactly......... it was confusing putting 00 down as a date..

 

Thanks, never thought about it being from the year 2000, probably a good assumption.

I know original frames can tell a lot about the age of the artwork sometimes. But there is a lot of antique art in new frames.

Thanks for all of the help.

 

Of course, but seeing the backs of pieces does inform the evaluation.