Featured Hand Painted - Hand Embellished Tranfer

I've seen videos on how to tell a transfer from a hand painted piece. One way is transfers will have dots. Of course painting will have brush strokes. If you can feel the piece, paint has a feel of different levels, where transfer is flat. However, I can not find anything related to hand embellished transfers. This happened on a lot of porcelain portraits.

On jewelry it's easy to see the image is flat with the exception of some of the lines which are clearly painted. You can see the brush strokes.

I bought this at a flea market today because I liked it. The man said it was hand painted. But, I had my doubts. Because part looks flat and the accents are obviously brush strokes. Either way it's nice. It's also signed by the artist.


I did a google image search and found the same painting in the exact same frame, done by another artist. It's really bad.


I did a google search of the face and it's Helene Seldmayr 1813-1898. Painting by Joseph Karl Steiler 1831.

Original Painting


The difference between the two copies is night and day. But, the frame is exactly the same. I'm GUESSING these artists worked for the same company. They copied Helene's portrait, mine turned out well, the other didn't.

Someone at another site told me to look at the bad one's lacing. He said the black dots were transfer, and the yellow was poorly painted. It's also noticeable within her pink scarf.

Mine doesn't have black dots. I used a loupe to look throughout my painting and I don't see any dots anywhere. I see brush strokes in the accents. But, in the lighter areas, it's flat. I don't see strokes or dots.

Is there a definitive way to tell a hand embellished transfer from a 100% hand painted porcelain portrait?

THANK YOU!

 

Yours is lovely. Beautiful soft tones too.

The folds of her sleeve are also rather crude.

 

How big are these images, and what are they painted on?

The fact that you found two with significant differences between them suggests that these were hand painted. If they were reproductions, they should look the same.

I'd want to see a close up of these "black dots" you refer to. A dot matrix is an indication of photolithography, but if so, it would be expected throughout the image. Dots might just be stippling.

Neither seems close enough to the original to suggest an overpainted photo reproduction.

Brushstrokes may make it easier to say this is painted, but lack of them doesn't necessarily mean it isn't, and finishes can be applied to a print that give the appearance of brushstrokes.

There are many ways to apply an image to a surface.

Clear, tight close-ups might be useful.

 

I use a magnifier app on my phone. They are free. I like Magnifying Glass ++ because it has no adds. It's a blue square with a magnifying glass in the middle.

 

The photo I put up of mine is the best you'll ever see from me. I take awful photos with a little Canon camera that fits in your pocket. You should see the first photo I posted at another site. There should be a law that prevents me from ever touching a camera.

There's a facebook group that worships miniature paintings. The moderator removed my post about this. He said it was a hand embellished photographic print. He's pretty smart. I accept his determination. But, in my post I asked "how do I tell it's partially printed?" No one answered. I like to learn about things. One day I will find out how.

 

I will stick with what I said earlier: neither example you found is close enough to the original to convince me that they are colored photo reproductions. Close ups might change my mind.

If these are overpainted photos, they have been overpainted to the point that the underlying print is no longer visible. It is possible to do that.

However it was done, as you discovered, these are copies of an existing image, not original compositions. That doesn't necessarily mean they are copies of the original painting. An intermediary reproduction might have been used as source material.

Any surface that will take a photographic emulsion will accept a photographic image.

My own camera is little more than a 20 tear old toy. To get reasonable images is largely a question of persistence.