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Portrait or colorized photo of US soldier?


Tonomachi
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I bought this today for $10.00 at a local flea market. The seller told me that this was one of three that her aunt had in her possession of a family member. The aunt felt this one was too beat up to keep and gave it to a family member to dispose of. I am waiting for a phone call from the aunt who will hopefully call and give me the name of this individual. It looks like this was in an oval frame initially and then reframed afterwards. Is this a drawing or maybe a colorized type of photograph? Is this Civil War era? Can anyone make out the medals?

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post-1389-1192924404.jpg

post-1389-1192924415.jpg

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It is almost certainly a hand-tinted photograph.

 

I suspect the colors on those ribbons may not be accurate: it seems unlikely that a soldier from any country would receive three medals that all have the same color ribbons. It could be too that the details of the medals were blurred in the original photo and that the colorist took artistic license with them.

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Thanks for the information and unfortunately I have yet to receive any calls from the aunt to determine who this is.

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I believe this and other portraits like this are drawings taken from photographs. I have in my family several pictures done in this technique. I don't have the two for comparison but there is a large portrait of my great grandfather done from a smaller CDV (cabinet) photograph. Since large photographs, 8x10 and larger were very expensive and almost impossible to take, larger portraits taken from the smaller photo was done. As you see there is no real detail, all the blemishes and natural lines visible in a photo are absent in the "colorized" picture. A common theme is to fade the background or the bottom of the picture to avoid more detail.

The era of my family portraits date around the late 1880's to 1910, I know this because I know the family history involved.

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