Tuesday Treasures - May 28, 2024

 I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had bought an old oil painting and was waiting for some olive oil soap to arrive so I could try to clean it.  Olive oil soap was recommended for cleaning oil paintings at home.  This is an oil, acrylic paints weren't invented until decades after this was painted. 

It did some good, but not much, and as the painting is dated 1902 I am not going to do anything more to it.  The most noticeable grime is in the clouds and sky.

To get the best color I couldn't take a straight on photo due to the lighting.  

Imagine the colors above on the photo below. 

It's big.  24" x 34"

The painting is quite a bit older than this frame.  This one is c1930s-1940s, from a framer in Alameda, CA.  Everette E. Farwell (1889-1962), Sr. (not Jr. who has more of an Internet presence) owned a nursery, and a bookstore/framing shop.  His son took over the nursery business and made a name for himself in rhododendron circles.  It took a bit to work out which Everett was which, as the Sr. and Jr. don't seem to have been used.  

There is evidence it was framed before, at least twice.  One took more than 1" off each side, top and bottom, as shown by the marks.

Then, a thin green line, which may indicate that while the painting was still in a frame, the frame was painted green.  It looks like the same green the artist used, so perhaps it was the original frame. 

It does have some damage, as you can see.  

The signature is not totally readable.  The first name starts with M, then perhaps a period followed by another capital letter, another period, and a last capital before the last name of Moran.

A couple closer views.

If I have any criticism, it's the marks in the dirt road!  I'd rather have the road through the forest unsullied; the view imagining themselves first to take it!

I got this in one of the retail Goodwill stores.   I paid just $9.44.   After making sure the price sticker directly on the painting didn't pull off paint!  That's my new policy, my son's idea, to tell them we'll buy if the sticker didn't cause damage!  They had taken care to hang this on a wall rather than just leaning in with a bunch of artwork.  I'm surprised they were asking so little.  I posted it to Instagram and right off got an offer to buy, and a request to message someone else about it.  No.  It's not for sale, and I won't be messaging strangers!

After some artwork Tetris it's hanging in my bedroom.