Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lizjewel, post: 2880389, member: 13874&quot;]For what it&#039;s worth, I see this in the painting:</p><p><br /></p><p>A woman holding a dead or dying child. The child may have been born malformed, its head is hanging. If I were to push my imagination a little further, the depiction hints that the child may have been born with two heads. Aaaaright... criticize me on that one if you will; it&#039;s just an opinion based on impression.</p><p><br /></p><p>The bearded man is not necessarily the baby&#039;s father [let&#039;s not go there], but the husband of the woman holding the child.&nbsp; Not a grandfather, his face is youngish, age a little over 40 I&#039;d guess.</p><p><br /></p><p>The mature woman&#039;s face is rounded but not too aged, likely of similar age to the man, i e his wife.</p><p><br /></p><p>The woman with gray hair showing under a headscarf is a grandmother.</p><p><br /></p><p>The short girl with protruding stomach may have been the unfortunate mother whose child died. Perhaps she was taken advantage of by someone outside the family. She also appears to be blind.</p><p><br /></p><p>The little girl on the right, head leaning on the mature woman&#039;s knee is another young child or may be a midget sibling.</p><p><br /></p><p>Her head, other proportions, are wrong for a child of an age that corresponds to her height.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also, the dress is too &quot;old&quot; in style for a child of her height.</p><p><br /></p><p>Not mentioned in previous posts&nbsp; is the boy seated with crossed legs next to the bearded man, with a book on his lap, his gaze directed toward the others in the group.</p><p><br /></p><p>What book is he studying? A bible? To judge from the double columns of text, oddly highlighted, it is probably meant to show a bible. Perhaps a prayer is being read from it for the dead baby.</p><p><br /></p><p>I first thought that the scene could be from the Low Countries. Studying the village buildings in the distance I am more inclined to believe the painting shows an Italian family with a fishing village by a sea, Mediterranean, or Aegean.The faces are oddly Italian looking to me.</p><p><br /></p><p>I believe this painting was either in a room where there was a fire, or had hung above a fire place. There appears to be scorching on the left as if exposed to high heat. This made the head of the boy hard to distinguish.</p><p><br /></p><p>If I&#039;m wrong about the <i>whitish</i> areas being fire or heat damage and are maybe a result of a flash from a camera that sometimes causes this effect on an image, please correct me.</p><p><br /></p><p>I put the age of the motif at mid-19th century. When the actual painting may have been executed I&#039;d have no idea.</p><p><br /></p><p>As far as the artist having been an itinerant painter, sure, why not. I could also be a student copy of a painting in a museum somewhere.</p><p><br /></p><p>More ideas?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in