Occasionally I'll see a Victorian dried flower composition with a cut paper element, but I don't believe I've ever seen a sea moss picture like this before, with that black paper urn evoking a theorem painting stencil as well as a cut paper silhouette portrait, and I think locating it c. 1850s or so. I love sea moss pressings of all sorts (including for the fact that sea moss gathering represented an acceptable way for young women to get out in nature on their own!), and especially whole "pictures" like this--and with a satisfying density and wildness to the moss here, feeling almost like flames!
14 1/2" x 11 5/8", framed as found, under glass, carved oak frame with silver gesso, I believe original. Good condition , with one tear (loss) along the left edge of the paper and maybe a bit of sea moss lost at the very bottom of the picture (right below the black base of the vase/urn.)
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