Featured Any thoughts on this unsigned painting?

I bought this oil painting a few years ago. It’s about 39 x 26 cm. I don’t know anything about it. It’s unsigned, but has a wax seal on the back.

I was wondering if someone could tell me more about it.

 

Hi NJ!

Welcome to Antiquers.......I haven't a clue, but love the subject matter.

I know there are members here who can adise you further, but @Deborah comes to mind.

 

Have you had the back off to see if there is any additional information on the back? It's a lovely painting!

 

Charming painting, NJ, and welcome.
There could be a signature hiding behind the frame.

 

Welcome. The wax seal looks like it would have been that of an owner. Expect there will be comments on the way it has been backed.

 

If the oak back view of the painting is the actual panel (I suggest it is) my opinion is that the panel has been reduced to suit the frame and that we may be looking at only part of the original (much larger) composition ....but maybe not!

 

I may be completely misreading the photo, but looks to me like the oak panel has a narrow frame right around it, & then the framed panel is being snugged into the gilt frame with little wedges on the sides, like it was actually a smidge too small for the frame.

 

That's the liner, Bron, the cloth covered "mat" you see on the front.

 

I think it was reframed at some point. The oak panel looks like part of a drawer as it is beveled on the right and bottom, but not the left or top.
Also it appears it was put into the larger outer frame and shimmed with pieces of what look like cut tree limb.

 

I actually do not understand this at all, other than that I got it wrong, which is no great surprise as I know nothing of the intricacies of picture framing. I see no cloth on the front unless the painting is on canvas. Cluttered has just made observations more like mine. I'll stand back & let you guys hash it out. Only other comment is that the inner white/silver? part of the frame on the front could be hiding a signature.

 

Those "fillets" are usually cork and that is of course what you are seeing as "wedges". The panel is, as you say, cluttered, beveled on two edges ...not impossible that a professional painted on such a panel, but IMO more a sign of reduction, especially with a fancy non-cut-downable frame on hand.
Sometimes inconsequential artist's names are removed by the unscrupulous in order to attribute works to bigger names. Not all that uncommon in the art game.

Also, at 15" x 10" I think it very possible this was a larger work at one time.

I would be interested as to where (country) the OP purchased this piece as from what I can see it appears to have a Scandinavian origin.

 

Thanks for your reply! I bought it in the Netherlands.

 

Not yet, but I will!

 

I thought it looked Dutch! I may have a panel by the same painter, of a little girl in a pink dress playing with a wood in the background. It is signed Berg, if I am correct it was J.F. Berg, a 'jonkheer' (are you Dutch?), if that helps.
My mother bought it in the late 1940s.
It is currently hiding somewhere in a stack of paintings leaning against a wall. I'll see if I can find it, but it may take some time.

 

Top left doesn't look like cork.

 

Maybe not, but I guarantee it is ..that is what we use when framing in this style.

 

If you are referring to Joan Frans Berg, this painting is not his style or technique. Perhaps you are thinking of another painter named "Berg"?

 

Thank you for the suggestion! And yes I,m dutch

 

It's definitely cork!

 

He painted in several different techniques throughout his lifetime, but I must say I thought it quite odd that my mother's painting would be by this particular Berg. It is more detailed than this one, but the same feel.
I never had it looked at properly, because I never liked it. As a child I thought the woods or shrubbery looked like a monster looking over a hill at the playing girl, and that image stuck.