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Water Colour Artist
We have recently been contacted by a Peter Boylan, who has in his possession ten watercolour paintings by a Thomas Willingale of Huddersfield. (Not the same Thomas who saved Epping Forest). These paintings date from the 1880's and 1890's. One of Thomas paintings shows a woman walking down a country lane in front of a large ramshackle cottage, the detail in the painting is extraordinary.
On the back of one of the paintings was this picture, which we assume is either Thomas Willingale or his son Robert. Can anyone confirm who is in this picture? We would also like to know if Thomas painted any other pictures?
The WFS have had this photo dated, the report is as follows:
In some ways this is the most intriguing photograph, not least of all because of where it was found. Old photographs turn up in all sorts of unexpected places and this may have been tucked behind the frame of the painting at any time from its creation in the 1880s/1890s onwards. It need not necessarily date from the same period as the painting, nor need it have any direct connection with the painting itself. The photograph must, though, have belonged to somebody who once owned or looked after the painting. If more is known about the provenance of the painting, who owned it and where it hung in the past, this might well suggest the family or the home in which the photograph originated.
As regards dating the image, again this is difficult, partly because there is no visible background or obvious context in which to place it. Close-up shots became especially popular amongst professional photographers during the 1920s and 1930s, though I can’t tell whether this is a professional or amateur photograph. Dating the dress is slightly tricky too because of the limited view of this young man, and furthermore the exact details of his clothing are not very clear. That said, as far as I can tell he is either wearing a white jersey with a collar, or a white shirt without a jacket. Either way, this suggests a 20th century, rather than 19th century date. Comfortable jersey-type garments were worn in the late-19th century by some workmens (eg fishermen) and sportsmen but they did not enter regular dress until the early 1900s or later. By the 1920s they were common as casual wear, and especially as school and play clothes for boys, and often had a collar and sometimes even a tie built in. If this is a shirt, however, the soft-looking collar with points (as opposed to a starched collar with rounded edges) indicates a date at least in the mid-1910s. So we are definitely looking at a 20th century image, possibly late-1910s or 1920s in date, but perhaps later.
What strikes me most is his unusual cap. This is difficult to determine exactly but fitting closely to the head and worn fairly well back on the head, it looks most like a skull cap, similar to the kippah (Hebrew) or yarmulke (Yiddish) worn by some Jewish men from the age of 13, following the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. Skull caps don’t always denote a Jewish wearer, but in a 20th century western context they are otherwise rare. This man may be a little more than a boy, I should say in his late teens, judging from his clean shaven face, though, again, by the mid-late 1910s many young men were in any case going completely clean shaven. A hairless face was the prevailing fashion for young men from the post WW1 period until the 1960s when hippie styles favoured a beard for a time, another feature which suggests a date well into the 20th century for this photograph.
It would certainly be interesting to identify this boy or man and the history of the painting may provide a clue, but otherwise, unless further information comes to light, he may remain a mystery.
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