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Oil on Canvas
xx x xx inches
xx x xx framed inches
Signed
Good condition
An oil on canvas painting by Elizabeth Orton Jones (1910-2005) after Diego Velazquez’s Portrait of Juan de Parejais, measuring approximately 13 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches in its original frame measuring approximately 19 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches. Brilliant colors and fine condition as pictured. Last origin Chicago, IL. Thanks for looking.
Portrait of Juan de Parejais a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velzquezof his assistantJuan de Pareja, a notable painter in his own right, who wasenslavedand owned by Velzquez at the time the painting was completed. Velzquez painted the portrait inRome, while traveling inItaly, in 1650. It is the earliest knownportraitof a Spanish man of African descent. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Elizabeth Orton Jones (1910-2005) Biography Born June 25, 1910, in Highland Park, IL; died May 10, 2005, in Peterborough, NH. Illustrator and author. Jones was a Caldecott Medal-winning author and illustrator of children’s books. Interested in writing and art from an early age, she won the Silver Cup for English composition at the House in the Pines school in Norton, Massachussets, before enrolling at the University of Chicago. There, she earned a Ph.D. in 1932 after only three years of study. She continued on to France to study at the cole des Beaux Arts, earning a diploma in 1932. Next, she studied art under Camille Liausu, and it was while working at Liausu’s studio that she began illustrating children at play as a way to loosen up her art and portray more motion in her artwork. After returning to the United States and exhibiting her pieces at the Smithsonian Institute, Jones, who had toyed with the idea of creating children’s books for some time, created the characters of Mich and Tobie. She drew a series of artworks featuring these two French children and accompanied the illustrations with text. This developed into her debut children’s book,Ragman of Paris and His Ragamuffins(1937). She continued with a successful career after that, writing and illustrating her own books, as well as illustrating other authors’ texts. Among the latter was 1944’sPrayer for a Child, by Rachel Field, which won the 1945 Caldecott Medal for best illustrated children’s book. Beginning in 1940, Jones learned much more about book production by working with William and Lillian Glaser at their company in Long Island City, New York. The first product of this association wasMaminka’s Children(1940). Other books by Jones includeTwig(1942) andHow Far Is It to Bethlehem?(1955). When the Crotched Mountain Center, a rehabilitation community for disabled children, opened in 1953 in Greenfield, New Hampshire, Jones began an association with the facility that would last for years. This started when she was commissioned to paint several murals for the center, but she soon became much more involved in working directly with the children by encouraging their artistic interests, helping them produce Christmas plays, and serving as a friend and mentor. Jones was presented with the Good Samaritan Award in 2002 from the Pastoral Counseling Services in Manchester, New Hampshire, for her service to children. Source: New York Times, May 13, 2005