Featured Folk Art Portrait

Anyone have insight into this piece?
I'm wondering if I might be able to identify the cathedral or chapel if anyone has a best guess on where it may have originated? Though I guess it wouldn't necessarily mean it was where the picture was painted, probably a studio backdrop...but interesting to know. Could be French church since it has a rooster weathervane.

 

That is a distinctive building. As painting a portrait, likely it has some association with subject. Doesn't look like the original frame. Have you taken work out to see if signature falls below? Any markings on back?

Debora

 

Oh, and your painting isn't folk art. It was done by a trained painter. This is folk art. Charming but notice how the painter's reach exceeds his grasp.

Debora

 

looks like a typical Norman tower. found from Scotland to England to Northern France down to Sicily. good luck.

 

A rooster vane is not typically French. It stems from the pre-Christian European custom of putting roosters on top of maypoles, etc. For churches they changed the meaning to the rooster of st Peter.
Here in the Netherlands rooster vanes are mostly on Calvinist Protestant churches. Catholic churches generally have crosses, although they can have roosters as well. Lutheran churches have swan vanes.

 

From the pointed windows with tracery, the tower appears to be Gothic Revival. The same elements can be seen here in Westminster Abbey. And the proportion of the turrets bring to mind another well known Gothic Revival building, the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster.

Debora

 

If the painting is from Europe, whether island or continental, the tower is more likely to be Gothic than Gothic Revival. After all, pointed windows with tracery were Gothic for many centuries before the Revival came along.

The slightly tapering shape is a bit odd, it makes me think it could be a folly.
Another thing I noticed is the colour difference between the body of the church and the carved parts, which makes me think of Norfolk flint churches with limestone accents.
This clearly is not the tower on the painting, but just to show what I mean by the two colours:

http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/norwichlawrence/norwichlawrence.htm

 

from the hair and clothes it seems to be Biedermeier

 

A Biedermeier girl would be wearing pantalettes, like the girl in the painting Debora posted. The shoes look later, I think this girl was dressed up in a historic costume.

 

That's interesting. My first thought was it was a folly too. The scale is domestic and a church tower would be open for bells. Oh, and subject could be a boy.

Debora

 

On the other hand, there is a house to the right of the tower. So there are at least two houses in close proximity to the tower, including the house the child is in.
A folly is usually in the gardens of a country estate.

 

No expert but looks Revival rather than true Gothic to my eye. That's because of the OTT proportion of the turrets and just a general Romantic feeling overall.

Debora

 

Someone certainly went overboard on those turrets.

 

Could be a folly along the lines of Hadlow Tower, a bit more ambitious than an over-sized garden ornament.

Debra

 

I hopp you onderschtand sse Bawarians
https://www.br.de/br-fernsehen/send...lde/kunst-krempel-maedchen-mit-ziege-100.html

 

Onderschtanding sse Bawarians vos allreit. I didn't quite catch the Dutch surname of the little girl though. Something with van Hoop.
They sure are reading a lot into the painting, like a scared look in the girl's eyes, which I never noticed and still don't. And the little goat with an uncertain future in its eyes.... Wow, what a load of.....

By historic costume I meant it was painted after the Biedermeier period, but dressed in an earlier, so Biedermeier, dress, minus Biedermeier pantalettes. And wearing later shoes. Or rather one shoe, which, along with the missing underwear, makes me wonder about the painter's intention.

 

I didn't link because of the goat, my name is not Erdogan

 

Ott but I like it. It looks like a miniature Antwerp Cathedral:

 

I wonder if it might be satirical. A sly comment on someone's mistress.

 

Could be. A slightly kinder explanation than my misgivings, although not much.