I don't very often go for a tinsel painting, often a bit too garish for me though their existence as an artform makes me really happy--but I was all in at first sight with this one, found in New Hampshire, with the watermelon perched on top, and that knife floating above it as if levitating, really doing it for me! Terrific down to every detail I think , from the bright yellow footed bowl with red painted details (all the painting is reverse glass painting) to the green foil leaves and red foil grapes. Electric feeling, but in just the right dose, and with a real crispness about it too.
A few years ago I did a deep dive into the online collection of the American Folk Art Museum, which happens to have the largest collection of tinsel paintings anywhere, many of which were featured in a major 2013 exhibition there titled "Foiled." Looking at those examples got me thinking about, and paying more attention to, this particular form of reverse glass painting, in which crumpled pieces of metallic foil were applied behind unpainted areas, such that, viewed in candlelight or gaslight as they would have been, they would shimmer in a magical sort of way (which makes them seem now like site specific works of art.) As with many of my favorite things, this was an art form practiced largely by young women, first taught in America in the first half of the 19th c. as part of a "refined" education, and then spreading to become widely popular as a folk art in the second half of the 19th c. I would guess this dates to mid/3rd quarter of the 19th century.
15 7/16" x 12 1/8", original frame, original grass. All in good antique condition, with some light scratches to the surface of the frame, pretty minor and all of a piece with it.