Attributed to A. Ellis

Found in a shop in New Hampshire.

A similar example to this painting attributed to A. Ellis, Boy with Dog, is in the Maine State Museum, discovered in Readfield, Maine in 1979. There are fewer than twenty portraits attributed to A. Ellis, and very little is known about the artist. Although the subjects of both the Woman with Shawl and Boy with Dog are unknown, other sitters attributed to A. Ellis were from central Maine and New Hampshire, where this painting surfaced. These two paintings show a similar unusual rendering of the eyes and nose - dark and bead-like, with the nose being a continuation of the eyebrows. The fingers of Woman with Shawl are also unusually pointed, similar to other A. Ellis attributed works. For additional information on A. Ellis, see Folk Art in Maine: Uncommon Treasures 1750-1925, ed. Kevin D. Murphy, (Camden, ME: Down East, 2008), p. 87.