thrifted frame, lightfastness, and identifying a painting

At the thrift shop, all I saw was the frame.  I wanted it.  I needed it.  I know exactly what I want to paint to put in it.  It's perfect.



Normally I don't get to see frames like this.  There are a few people who know when the art gets put out and go over every piece with a jeweler's loop and as a result, what's left is pretty sad.  we've had a few encounters, so if I see them in the shop, I avoid the art.  

But today, they were nowhere.  And that's a nice frame.

At least I think it is.  

I want to learn more about it.  What kind of frame is it?  Does that style have a name?  How old is it?  Can it take stretched canvas or does it need to be on a panel?  

And I cannot find any of that information.  So I started looking at the painting.  It's pretty sad.  I mean, brown leaves and unpainted flowers?  but. who would paint such a thing?

And who would take the time too frame it?  Framing is not easy and has never been that affordable.  It must have been special to someone to deserve a frame.

As I look at the painting in different light, I see that there are massive amounts of areas painted that don't show up.  The flowers themselves have beautiful details.  The leaves, well, half of them are missing.  And this got me thinking about lightfastness.  Some reds and yellows fade to brown pretty quickly.  The yellows in Van Gogh's sunflower series for example, were never that orange or brown - they were bright yellow.



With the exception of a few lake pigments, most of these fugitive pigments stopped being popular in the 1930s.  That said, when my mother learned to paint, she used her mother's set of oils which included paints from previous generations.  Student grade paints also kept using fugitive pigments well into the late 20th C.  

Looking at the painting closer, I feel that it's made by someone with a decent skillset.  Better than mine.  Maybe not one of the greats, but someone who's skill adds beauty to the world.  Someone who would be worth while to keep on painting and see where they go with it.

I haven't  had much luck with the signature or identifying the individual.  There are a few with the same name, but the signatures are different (all caps or cursive).  Perhaps you might have more luck?



There was better luck with a reverse image search of the painting as a whole.  It took a while, but I finally found a version in a book called how to paint roses and other flowers by Lola Ades



The composition is the same but there are significant differences.  I would say it's close enough to my mystery painting to say that one caused the other one to happen.  The book is published in 1989.



It's also quite a yellow painting and I don't know.  It seems like it's trying to look older than it is with those peach colours and sepia overall effect.  It's also a very different ratio.  The painting I brought home is twice as high as wide, the one in the book is closer to 2:3.  But I think the book has more care in areas like the hips, so I'm going to suggest that the book inspired the one I bought home.  

Which puts my thrift find as an early 1990s painting.

And now I have the question - how the heck could the paint have faded that badly in that short a time?  

Don't be misled by the stated publication date for that book. I believe the original version was published in 1950 https://www.amazon.com/Paint-Roses-Other-Flowers-Book/dp/B000O7WWZK . It looks right for that age. My mum had books from the same series that were published in the 60s.  It's been through many editions, which explains the one with a later date.  Lola Ades was born in 1913.

Ohhhh... that makes a big difference.

Thank you

So it could be 1990s. But as early as 1950s, or I would guess more likely 60s or early 70s. Those autumn tones were very popular in that era. I grew up with this sort of stuff!

One family member suggested this painting is older than the one in the book.  That would explain the fugitive colours as it certainly wasn't this sepia when panted.  It looks like it should have been bright reds and greens. If the yellow browned and red faded to invisible,  that would explain it.  But that would have to be a very early version of cad yellow before they found a way to stabilize it.

I might remove some varnish and see if that has any influence.

Then again,  I have doubts and think the painting comes after the book

She's added some nice touches of her own but the composition itself is almost identical to the one in the book. My guess would be it is a copy of the one in the book and is designed to be those faded yellow/browns, which were so fashionable for home decor in the 60s and early 70s. Oddly, back in fashion for interiors now, it seems!

One of the things that makes it tricky is we are missing about 3 quarters of the painting whereas we can see all-ish of the book version.

From what I can see of the brushmarks where the paint is gone, it seems a better painting than the one in the book.  (Family member says it's significantly better, but my art knowledge is still too small to say one way or the other).  That's why he is wondering if the painting in the book is copied from this one and adapted to the books style.

I've seen students outshine teachers, so I'm still very much on the fence.  

Pehaps the frame would give some clues as to the decade?  Not sure this painting and frame are an original match as the paper has been removed from the back.

r ranson wrote:One of the things that makes it tricky is we are missing about 3 quarters of the painting whereas we can see all-ish of the book version.

From what I can see of the brushmarks where the paint is gone, it seems a better painting than the one in the book.  (Family member says it's significantly better, but my art knowledge is still too small to say one way or the other).  That's why he is wondering if the painting in the book is copied from this one and adapted to the books style.

I've seen students outshine teachers, so I'm still very much on the fence.  

Pehaps the frame would give some clues as to the decade?  Not sure this painting and frame are an original match as the paper has been removed from the back.

I'm confused by your earlier post about the difference in proportions, to then be followed up by "missing 3/4 of the painting"... If it is a student work after the example painting in the book, there's no rule that it must be the same scale, or proportion, or just a segment. My guess is that it was done with a canvas/stretchers that were available, or chosen to fit a particular spot in a home more tall than wide? If the canvas were larger, and re-stretched onto a narrower stretcher then there might be evidence when removed from the frame, either image wrapped around the sides, or paint that has been cut through?
But the spacing of the flowers seems elongated vertically, as if to fill the taller space, and extra hips added to aid the composition, makes it seem intentional. The book version has a more cohesive "burst" of light in the center, that the painting didn't get in the upper left, but both have a sort of misty, impressionistic moving away from the flowers, with only the leaves in the foreground having a lot of detail. So, I'm not sure it's "loss" on the painting, rather an oversight? or intentional, to maybe be more about the flowers? more artistic license.

Three quarters of the paint has faded to white or brown.  That's what I mean by missing.   We cannot see the paint as the artist applied it.

The varnish looks to be damar which gives all a sepia tone.

When the painting was fresh, it was probably bright pinks and green, with light cream background.

This is different than the dimensions.

For example,  this painting,  when they did analysis on the paint and looking at his letters, it was a bright yellow and cream with mauvy purples pinks.  None of this brown and grubby yellow.



This one, had bright pink and almost red flowers.  It took about two months before the flowers started to turn white. But those pigments were already unpopular in van goghs life.

It shows how fugitive paint changes over time.  But I have never seen such a dramatic example in person,  and not with modern colours.  Not oike this thrift find.  So it's interesting.

I don't worry about lightfastness in my practice paintings,  but now see how it effects, I might start paying more attention when buying paint.

Ah, now I understand my confusion. You are using words like "gone" and "missing" referring to the faded colors/fugitive pigments. To me, gone and missing, meant areas of loss of paint from the canvas, or that a larger canvas had been cut down to make that tall shape.
I couldn't quite get to seeing brushstrokes where the leaves were "gone"!  ha ha. The "paint" (the oil medium) is still there, but is colorless like a glaze, and "see-through" to other paint or gesso below. The "painting" (the process of creating an image) has "gone missing", and the canvas is whole (maybe, TBD...)

No worries. I figured since the title and first post focus on lightfastness, I assumed this focus would carry on in the conversation.

I did mention a difference in ratios of the canvases, but there is no evidence of it being changed in size since the original painting.

But the English language is fluid.  The same word can mean many different things in different parts of the world.

The texture of brushstrokes remain.  Some we can see are simply changed colours like the dark brow around the top rose was probably yellow green if they are using some of the chromes or older cadmium forumulas.  Above that cluster, it looks like a few sprigs of rosebuds, but only the texture of the brush strokes.  The paint has unified with the background colour. I won't know if it's transparent or white until I remove the varnish...if I do so.  It would be fun to find out.

The roses themselves have enough texture that I can see hints of the coours where the texture of paint has cast shadows.  This might be thick enough to do some cross cuts in the paint to see the layers.  Most of the petals have faded to white and then yellowed with the varnish.

But I would have to do some work on it to know for sure.

Anyway, I wonder if this rabbit hole will help date the frame.  That's the main reason I bought it.

Also, is there some way to tell if I have to use a panel on a frame (what's in there now) or if a stretched canvas would work?  It looks like an odd (aka, expensive) size for a panel but I could probably could get stretcher bars for that size easily.

Hmmm... from what I can see of the book, it doesn't say if it's oils or acrylics.

I wonder if an owner somewhere along the way was a smoker? Nothing against those who do, but having an ex-wife that was one, when she moved out, I scrubbed the walls and ceilings clean and there was this yellow film on everything that just made it all dingy. I know to clean a canvas is very dangerous on a work of art, but I wondered if that yellowish film was pulling some of the details out of the work?

Myself, I do not overly judge art adhering to this one statement; if a particular piece of art speaks to you, then you should buy the artwork, or if famous, then a print of it thereof. It need not matter what others think of it. In my case I have our art gallery filled with Henri Matise because my wife loves his work, while I love the Pre-Raphaelite Period artists with their vibrant colors and lack of trying to hide their brush strokes. But that is just us. We surround ourselves with them, because we enjoy that. But I fully get others having other artistic preferences, and respect that.

You bought the piece because you loved the frame, and that too is lofty and commendable.

I don't think the paint in the "missing" areas has necessarily faded to that colour, I think it was painted that way.

Steve's point about smokers is a good one. We had the same in our childhood home till Mum and Dad stopped smoking. They'd been heavy smokers and everything had an oily brown film on it. Ugh!

But given that the yellow tones are very similar to the painting she copied, it was probably intended it to look that way.

It has no smell of smoke.

I have artwork from a family member who smoked and the smell lingers 30 years later.  But if it's older, the smell could have faded.  Removing a section of varnish would also remove smoke discoloration.   That's one of the main functions of varnish, so it can be removed to clean the painting, then reapplied.  

Seeing it in person, I can see the brushmarks of the places that have faded.  Uv light also reveals some brushmarks where none are expected.

Using a loop (jewelry magnifying glass), I can see tiny traces of original colour in the shadow of the brush texture.  

There are definitely parts of the painting missing (faded beyond what I can photograph)  and colour changes from fugitive pigments.  Still used today,alizarin crimson, or madder lake as it was called, is famous for becoming that shade of brown.  It would have been used to dull the greens in the shadows and if it's and older form of cadmium like in the Van Gogh example above, it explains that colour.

The overall sepia cast could be the artists intent.  But I'm not convinced it was supposed to be this strong.  Other factors add to it like how varnish yellows, dirt, if linseed based paint, storing in the dark, and the losses from colour fading amplifying providing a white backgrouns to the yellow.

...

A. Most likely,  she copied the book and used a colour scheme that fit her style more.

B. Small possibility,  the book artist copied her (I've seen this done loads of times in this sort of book in the 1980s and 1990s, not always giving credit, as the art would have looked about 10 or 20 years after being painted.  Damar would have yellowed given enough light and the flowers faded to peach on their way to their current white.

I'm leaning towards option A. Family member with more art expirence still feels B is on the table.

But I also think it would be fun to paint a copy using the clues I can't share online (macro lense is sad just now) to show what the original colours would have looked like.  I alway love it when the museums do that with their art to give a glimpse into how the painter intended the art to look.  But that would take time away from other projects.   Perhaps if we get some winter weather.

I hope you did not get the wrong impression that I did not like the painting? I do, as my wife loves flowers, and it is certainly a painting we would put in our home if we owned it. I am also glad you brought the painting up as a topic as its been a fun discussion.

I also have nothing against artists that copy other more famous works, just as long as they cite what they did. I have a huge print in my office from an artist that copied a painting by John Collier, and I actually like the non-famous artist rendition better than John Collier's original. But that is just me...

My financial advisor was talking to me the other day about her wanting to buy some art as an investment, and I am not really sure how anyone would go about doing that. How do you decide on art that will increase in value? I have no idea and think it misses the mark. I just buy what I like and enjoy it in my home. That to me is priceless. I cannot even figure out why people do what they do, much less would know what unknown people will like twenty years from now.

My day job from the mid 90's until 2018 has been a custom picture framer. The first decade was high end in downtown Toronto and the last last 15 was my own place in an antique store cluster. Just to give some context for my comments.

First the frame. I would put its age around late 80's to mid 90's. It could be a bit in either direction but I lean towards 90-95ish. It is made up of 2 separate frame mouldings. The inner section is called a liner. That is a lower end type because it is one where it is sold in the sticks, ready to be cut and assembled. The higher end ones have their wood bases cut and joined and then are wrapped in a single piece of fabric to give a seamless front.
They give space between the art and the frame so they do the same thing as matboard, but don't need to be under glass.
The frame itself is probably from a company called Oxford. They were one of the bigger wholesale suppliers in Canada and it looks like their style. Very traditional and not super pricey. Many of their designs had very long production runs since they were always broad appeal and pretty timeless.
While it would most likely have been custom built, it wouldn't have been super expensive at the time and has little to no collector value but is still a good and solid frame that you should be able to put a canvas on a stretcher into it but you may need some more attachment hardware and it will project at bit out the back. ( this isn't a problem but it does mean the frame doesn't sit flush against a wall)

My take on the art is that it is an amateur copy of the picture you posted. I expect the painter was feeling good about it and either framed it for themselves or as a gift. It might have been given as a gift and the recipient framed it due to sentiment. It looks like most of the colour choices are deliberate but if you can see colour fade in it, it might be that they were mixing different types that didn't actually go together. Like mixing natural pigment watercolours into acrylic medium. Cheap craft pigments, like for tole painting, could also have been mixed in and they could fade out as well.
I'm all for using the cheap stuff you can find for learning and practicing techniques but there can be issues when you make something you want to keep out of them!

Good to know about the frame. I was feeling a late 80s vibe but wasn't sure if that was accurate or just because that's when I started being exposed to artists.

I'm happy it will be easy to reuse as it's sturdy and just the right amount of boring to fit almost any subject.

Pigment wise, all the types of paint use the same pigment.  Just different binders.  Mixing oils and water binders like watercolour and acrylic does not go well.  The binder has very little effect on the lightfastness of the pigment.  Now, if the paint uses dye.., that's a whole different thing.  Most reputable paints won't do this.

If we put this painting at 1990, it means just over 30 years to fade from vibrant pinks and greens to the current sad state of browns and empty spaces where colour used to be. That's fast for modern pigments.  Were kid starter sets of oils around in the late 1980?  I remember having to use just everyday paints as oils weren't something made specifically for kids.  But we were semi rural, so bigger art shops might have more options.

amateur copy

It looks amateur because it's in such a sorry state.  Imagine the colours and missing elements and it's a far better painting than we see in the book.

As it is today, it's just a sad waste of canvas.   How it was when painted was a lot better.