Portrait of a Woman, Lithograph by W. Graupenstein, 1864

About this sheet

An original lithographed portrait of a woman, signed in the stone at lower left "W. Graupenstein lith. 1864" and lettered at lower right "G. Hunckel's Druckerei", the printing house of G. Hunckel. The sitter is not named.

She is shown at half length, facing the viewer, a woman in middle life with dark hair parted in the center and drawn smoothly down over the ears. She wears a dark velvet dress with a broad lace collar fastened by a brooch, a row of buttons down the bodice and deep fringed trimming at the shoulders, and a long watch or chatelaine cord with tassels hangs from a clasp at her breast. The face is rendered with great softness and evident fidelity, and the figure fades into an oval of shading on a lightly tinted ground.

Friedrich Wilhelm Graupenstein was a lithographer working in Hamburg, many of whose portraits are held by the Hamburger Kunsthalle. By 1864 portrait lithographs of private sitters were often drawn from photographs, and the careful, unidealized likeness and the precise detail of the dress here are typical of that practice. The image is printed on a tinted ground that sets it within a softly colored panel on the larger white sheet.

The dress, with its lace collar, fringed epaulet trimming and velvet bodice, is an exact record of German middle class fashion in the 1860s and makes the sheet of interest to costume historians as well as to collectors of portraits.

The large sheet and strong, quiet composition make this a handsome portrait to frame, and it would sit well in a hallway, a bedroom or a group of nineteenth century portraits.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.