Featured Identification: Large Hand Painted Victorian Brooch

Oh my! what a resemblance. I will look into this, thank you for the information Figtree3.

 

Look at the flowers in the scarf.

 

The red "coral" may have been the jewelers way of adding color and has nothing to do with what was actually worn. Also, if the necklace was done as pearls like the photo, the red lips would have stood out too boldly.

 

Wow @Figtree3 !!! Amazing ID!

That is too perfect to be coincidence.

 

You've nailed it Fig! I would never have thought of Juliet.
And she is wearing pearls, probably costume. The painter had probably mixed too much red for the lips and rosy cheeks.

 

I guess that collecting lots of 19th-century theatrical photos paid off! I don't think I have a copy of this particular photo, but now I'll have to look to make sure. I have so many at this point...

Because the artist who painted the brooch did not really seem to attempt to make the face look like that of Mary Anderson, it's possible that they just liked the image in general and decided to emulate it. (Or maybe the person was not very good at copying faces.)

By the way, I believe that necklace might have had a cross on the end of the part hanging down. I'm trying to find another shot from the same sitting that might show that.

 

I found this shot... It doesn't show definitively that it is a cross but you can see there is something at the end of the pearls that are hanging down. And I've seen pictures of her as Juliet, not wearing the veil, and I believe she was wearing a similar necklace with a cross -- perhaps the same one.

 

I meant to say earlier that the brooch on porcelain definitely looks painted, but what hit me more than that was that she looks SO SAD.....especially since you (all?) believe she's wearing a wedding veil.......

 

Well, I'm not sure of the intention of the artist as to what sort of outfit they meant it to be on the brooch. And you've probably seen in the "wedding photos" thread in the Ephemera and Photographs section that some brides in old photos did look pretty solemn, if not sad.

 

Oh, the thread is called "Vintage brides" not "Wedding Photos."

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/vintage-brides.8638/

 

Well done fig!

 

OMG that's her!

 

Thank You Figtree3

 

You're welcome, Magdellas!

 

Way to go, Fig!

 

Fit is amazing!

Back to the handpainted or transfer question. IMHO, it's both. Part is transferred on (black outlines) and detail is then handpainted on. These porcelain "cameos" showed the range in quality -- totally transfer to part transfer/part painted to these best; all handpainted.

 

For anybody who was interested in figuring out what Mary Anderson's necklace looked like... it turns out that I do own a different photo from the same sitting. This is a cabinet card photo.

First the full photo:




Then a crop showing the necklace. It is a little blurry, but it looks like the choker part includes pearls and the cross might be faceted stones? The cross doesn't look the same.

 

Figgy - Blown away that you could finger the lady & image behind the miniature. Maybe painter switched necklace to coral because it is easier to paint than pearls are? I can only add that the porcelain factories of Limoges, France, were the major source for this sort of thing.

 

Thank you, Bronwen -- As I mentioned, I am a collector of antique photos of people in costume, and have ended up with a lot of theatrical photos. Because of this I've read some 19th-century theatrical history, especially U.S. and Great Britain. And I've looked at a lot of photos, even when I don't own them! That being said, there are a lot of performers who were relatively unknown... so my success rate on ID-ing them is not always good.

 

Mrs. Siddons came into my researches on one of my pieces. My cameo is not of the actress; she is the wife of the last peer to be hanged in England.