I immediately fell in love with these watercolor portraits--and all the white space around them, amidst which they float in quite a wonderful way. So honest and earnest and she's got quite the excellent puffy sleeves, too. Happily their names were recorded on the papered backs of the frames: Frances Jane and Luther D. Woodbury, who I've found. They were brother and sister, and two of ten children, so perhaps there are eight others floating around like them!
Their father was Captain Luther Woodbury, born December 1, 1789, in Sutton, Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Lot Woodbury, who fought in the Revolutionary War. Our Luther D. was Luther Dwight Woodbury, the seventh of the 10 children, born in 1825 and died in 1848 in Essex, MA, unmarried with no children. Frances Jane was the 9th of the 10, born in 1828 and married one year before her death, in 1859. She married Foster Freeland in New York County, NY, and had one daughter. One would guess there portraits were painted in the mid 1840s.
Framed as found, in lovely antique gilded frames with original glass. Frances: 7 1/16" x 4 3/4". Luther: 7 3/16" x 4 3/4". Both in good condition, with some scattered toning spots as shown, which feel all of a piece with them and I don't think at all detracting. Sold as a pair.
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