Pair of Watercolor Portraits of a Handsome Young Couple,
Att: Da Lee Family
Circa 1830-40

Presented here are a pair of portrait miniatures of a handsome young couple with a Da Lee Family attribution. The portraits are in profile and very sensitively rendered.  The work of the Da Lees are honest chronicles of the working people of western New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and Ohio often displayed their finest lace and fancy chairs.

The family worked as itinerant artists and, as with most artists, some changes in style evolved over the years but from about 1840 the portraits were exclusively in profile. Especially noteworthy is the delineation of the individual sections of the hair and the attention to detail on the clothing.

While Justus Da Lee was the head of a family group that produced quite similar portraits, recent research has found that many times they worked together on portraits and often portraits attributed to Justus were actually the work of his son Amon or his brother Richard, as they all painted in a similar style, sometimes working on the same piece.  Because of this and the fact these two portraits are not signed we are giving the family attribution. 

While both portraits are excellent representations of this handsome couple, the woman is particularly wonderful with the three-quarter length view, the applied hands and belt buckle and the image of her face filled with a quiet beauty.

They are framed in a lemon gold rope twist frame with old wavy glass, 6 inches x 7 inches overall, and 3-1/2 x 2-2/3 inches, sight.
$6000.00
R11J280553

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