Oil

Original oil painting on canvas by Italian/American artist Virgilio Tojetti (1851-1901). A realistic portrait of a lovely young woman of New York's Victorian era upper crust. The painting measures 22 x 18 1/2 inches in oval format, originally it was stretched on rectangular stretchers, but the change to oval stretchers seems to have happened early in the painting's life, the stretchers are of very high quality and they are antique. The reformatting caused the artist's full signature "V. Tojetti" to travel around the width of the stretcher. The surface is in original condition, it has not been cleaned or revarnished, there are scattered losses and a scratch runs from the corner of her eye into her hair.  Lovely antique Victorian portrait by a noted artist. Virgilio Tojetti (1851-1901) was a Roman born American painter and fresco artist. He studied with his father, the painter Domenico Tojetti, and in Paris with Gérôme and Bouguereau. In 1870, he emigrated to America and spent the next thirty years living and working in San Francisco and New York City. He exhibited with the Boston Art Club, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, National Academy of Design and the Brooklyn Art Association. Tojetti painted murals for the New York City mansion of Charles T. Yerkes, as well as  the Savoy Hotel, and Flagler College (formerly the Ponce De Leon Hotel) in St. Augustine, Florida. He died in New York in 1901.