Antique Oil On Canvas Framed

Unsigned. Nice painting and frame. In frame measures 24" x 18 1/2". Frame is about 1 /2" thick. Unframed measures 18 1/4" x 12 3/4". I know it's not easy to ID an unsigned piece, but one can always hope.

 

Neat steel stretcher keys. Do you have a close-up picture of one of the keys? It might help narrow down a date range. I can't see any staples so most probably pre-WW2.

 

Techbiker

 

That could well be a decorative painting. Dogwood in bowl a popular subject in the mid-20th century. To my eye, the painting looks newer than the frame and hardware. Wonder what others think.

Debora

 

Debora. The canvas is nailed to the frame. It does look pretty old.

 

Yes, I agree. But the painting doesn't (to my eye.) Wonder if it's an overpaint.

Debora

 

There's a patent date. I spent a few minutes searching the USPTO but couldn't find any stretcher keys by "Cutis" around September 1888. If you are curious, you may try searching various terms to track down the inventor.

Patent Public Search | USPTO

I'd guess the painting date is sometime shortly after 1888 (probably pre-1900). Cutis doesn't seem to have been a major stretcher key manufacturer. If he/she only sold keys locally, you may be able to roughly track down where the painting was painted.

P.S. Another possibility is the keys could have been patented in the UK instead.

 

Just a gentle reminder that... One can't assume the painting is contemporary to the canvas and frame. A way to test that is to do a Google Images search for late-Victorian dogwood floral still life and see if anything remotely similar shows up.

Debora

 

Great point. Still, would someone go through the trouble of painting an unsigned relatively-generic (no offense!) floral scene on a vintage/antique canvas years later? If the canvas/frame were NOS when painted, I have trouble imagining they had been sitting in a warehouse for 100 years. Perhaps 10-20 years? Anything is possible for sure though. Image search is also a great idea.

 

The plot thickens.

Debora

 

Do we know if OPs flowers are dogwood flowers? I'm seeing 6 petals. Perhaps they are crabapple flowers instead?

Perhaps paintings like hers inspired the wave of mid-20th century dogwood flower paintings?

 

Tech, patents are not always easy to deal with, even if they have a number..

Debora, thanks for all the input. Google lens brings up a variety of high end and low end things.

 

I am wondering if a newer painting/canvas has been placed on an older stretcher frame combo. I am curious also about the inconsistent patina on the stretcher bars. I think the brackets and frame are from the same period. I like the painting, it would look nice in an older home.

 

My image search found this almost identical painting on Etsy with a modern frame????

 

Kraft, it doesn't look to me like your canvas has been relined. Do you see just one canvas layer? It also looks to me like your painting has a decently think grime layer. Patents can be tough.

Lithographer, I seriously wonder if these paintings are all copies of an older work. The stretcher bars don't look new to me. They appear fairly dark and basically CVG. The stretcher keys are fairly unusual and screws look period. The stretcher bar backs could have been cleaned at some point?

This is all just conjecture...

 

Bet they're all based on this Bessie Eastman Gourley watercolor 'Primroses' in the Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah. It's quite sweet. Images of it may have been widely disseminated.

Debora

 

Tech, It I took another look at it, it does not look relined.

Thanks Debora. I am not up on all my flowers. At least I know what to call them now.

 

Not dogwoods, they have 4 petals, OP’s pink flowers look to have 5

 

Thank you for the correction. Then primroses would be accurate. Five petals.

Debora

 

To my eye, the style and colors aren't consistent with the age of the frame or original canvas.