John Insco Williams Child Portrait Oil Painting

Item Details

John Insco Williams (American, 1813-1873)
Lulu (child portrait)
Oil painting on canvas
Unsigned
Presented in 19th century gilt wood frame with rose vignettes
Mid-19th Century

Born into a poor family, near Xenia, Ohio, Williams was apprenticed to a house and carriage painter by the age of 15. For the next seven years he took painting lessons in Cincinnati, OH and did itinerant portraits in Indiana. Between 1835 and 1840 he studied oil painting at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Sully and Russell Smith, then moved to Cincinnati by 1841, opening a studio “above Mr. Barr’s Millinery Store”. Williams painted fine portraits, exhibited at The Academy of Fine Arts, and taught at the Cincinnati Acadamy of Art for the next 28 years. John Insco Williams was also well known for painting panoramas, up to 10,000 yards of fabric, depicting bible history and the story of the American Rebellion, that were used in traveling shows throughout the country. By 1869 he moved to Dayton, Ohio were he died.

Condition

- areas of inpainting on child’s body and neck; overall craquelure; abrasions; discolorations; relined; newer stretchers; frame has cracks and 3" area of gesso loss along left edge; chip to upper left edge; discolorations; minor gilt loss.

Dimensions

- measurement of the frame; visible image measures 26.25"W x 35.25"H.

Item #

ITMG142779