Boy with Dog 19th Century Folk Art "Sandpaper" Painting filagree hairpin the White House

the White House

I must say that since first seeing it

held in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass

It was purchased from an estate in Waban

but also just as a lovely little object for display

Boy with Dog 19th Century Folk Art "Sandpaper" Painting filagree hairpin the White HouseThis marvelous thing is an antique "sandpaper painting" a technique popular in the mid 19th century, of creating charcoal drawings on paper coated with marble dust, which creates a surface with a fine grit like sandpaper. These are a pretty fascinating genre, typically monochromatic and most often depicting Hudson River landscapes, though one occasionally finds portraits and examples incorporating color, like this one. These most often were done by