Featured Hartford, Connecticut – cardboard business advertising sign! – request for help dating

Hello

Decided to work on a picture frame I picked up awhile back. I got it because of the frame and the beautiful original rippled / bubbled glass.

The whole thing was pretty dirty in the beginning. Fixed up the outside and brightened it up. When I can find some red linen, I’ll refresh the inner frame perhaps and tighten things up.

Removing the boards on the back to put a fresh mat on the inside, I discovered that at some point in time a mat had been put on. What I thought was just an old print of some sort or calendar picture, has turned out to be a cardboard advertising sign, I assume for this business. An early up-cycler or perhaps employee had covered all the printing using a crude mat. The mat did protect the leaf printing from any damage and UV

I’m not sure if the 14’ x 18 1/2”print and frame are original to each other, but, while it does have some light brown marks, I assume from the glass and board backing, there are no pin holes, staple or tape marks on the piece anywhere. It is not paper, but is like a thick cardboard with the print pasted on this and the printing done in a gold leaf. It may have been in some sort of frame at one time, perhaps even this one.

I’ve done a bit of research on the company in hopes of dating the piece, but was wondering if anyone on the forums is from Hartford. I get the sense that this business may have been in two locations, the latter a grand structure on Elm St. and now repurposed to a judicial bldg. I’m thinking a cardboard advertising sign may have been a bit low end for that location, but I don’t collect media like this so am not really sure of norms. I’d like to narrow the age range down from somewhere between 1880 and 1906. Perhaps it is later?

Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.

 

I'd say pre 1900 according to this: https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...ster assistant manager martin bennett&f=false

 

And after 1880 (got the information from that same biographical sketch).

 

I'm in Hartford almost every week. Elm street is smack downtown, such as it is, right by the Capital Building. It's bordered by a nice park on one side and a pile of government buildings on the other. The Bushnell Theater is down there too. Here's a blog entry that mentions the building in question. http://historicbuildingsct.com/?p=11186