French miniature or fake?

I saw this oval painting framed with bone today. On closer look the lady has nail polish and it is signed Hil, with very symmetrical letters. What do you think?

 

Photo of the entire piece and photo of the back would be helpful. I assume the painted part is around 2 inches high?

No reason to think this isn't older, but I'll reserve judgement until I see additional pictures. The frame may be ivory.

Many of these were done by different artists, and at different skill sets. A bit hard to see the signature, but from what I can see it might also be two initials.

 

Frame made of piano keys? I know we've seen a few here, but couldn't find them efficiently using piano key as the search term.

 

If you Ebay search "miniature portrait ivory" there are a few. I thought it was pretty complicated to sell ivory, was surprised to see several ivory ones sold on Ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Miniature-...=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

(Be sure to click on "original item")

 

It appears to be a modern decorative piece, framed in bone not ivory, but it would helpful if you posted a photograph of the back.

Debora

 

Thanks all, I saw it in a shop and being in a hurry, only took a photo of the front. I will go back on Monday and take more photos.

 

The older ones often had an interesting backing - like a page from a book or newsprint, sometimes in Italian, German, etc. The linked Ebay one above that sold for $50 shows a backing like that.

Will look forward to additional photos.

 

The back under the cardboard is probably lined with old book pages.
These miniatures were popular at the end of the 1800s. Sometimes they have hand painted highlights to make them look more like real portraitures.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ivo...mdPgAhUEG6wKHX4GDLgQ_AUIDygC&biw=1316&bih=897

 

Somewhere there is a thread about these miniatures, but I'm not finding it.
It is either here or on the old ebay boards. Talks about the book pages which are not written in English.

 

I know somewhere I showed these detail photos of the ivory-look frame of a similar piece of mine. It has a miniature reproduction of Raphael's Madonna del Cardellino, is quite nicely made, with lots of attention to detail, a back panel covered in red brocade fabric & is fake, fake, fake. When you tap it with a fingernail, even the 'metal' oval surrounding the picture sounds like plastic, & this is what happened when a bit of coffee splashed on the frame:



Have seen some that do appear to framed in pieced bone, but without having handled one of those, don't know if they really are.

 

You're right they aren't all ivory. Some are bone others are celluloind.

 

The grain on the surround Castelli posted follows each indiviual piece, the grain on yours doesn't. Which doesn't mean this one is ivory, just an observation

The cats? The turtles? Both?

 

I am pretty sure I have written about these, here.
I call them Piano key miniatures and I have sold very many of them on ebay when Ivory was OK. I'd buy them for about £50 and sell tem for about $100 so they were good bread and butter stuff.
The most expensive miniature I sold on ebay was about $1000 but it was not one of these.The idea of the book page backing was to make an early 20th C product look much older.

 

We've had several threads about these types of miniatures. I found four from the past. Thanks for the reminder that you used the phrase "piano key," @afantiques -- I found these that you and others commented upon in the past:

From November 2014:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/3-bone-ivory-framed-miniature-portraits.1873/

From August 2015:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/antique-plaque-tile-does-anyone-know-about-it.5464/

From August 2016:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/hand-painted-ivory-protrait-frame-of-soldier-what-country.11875/

From January 2018 (a different type of discussion but it came up in the search):
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/question-about-antique-miniature-portrait.24300/

 

The sig to the left of the woman looks like JiH to me (or J.H). Unless your image is flipped?