A young girl holding a sprigg of greenery
Attributed to The Puffy Sleeve Artist
New England, circa 1830
Hollow-cut, watercolor on paper over a black fabric backing, in oval, 3 ¾ x 2 ¾ inches, together with a paint-decorated miniature frame, New England, circa 1830, white pine, original painted decoration, iron ring hanger, 5 x 3 7/8 inches

The distinctive silhouette and watercolor miniature portraits by The Puffy Sleeve Artist are the most highly sought- after examples of this genre in American folk art. The very best portraits by The Puffy Sleeve Artist exhibit a distilled, abstract simplicity, and elegance, characterized by a carefully controlled balance of spatial relationships, with the sitter rendered large within the confines of the sheet, and the profiles of the body boldly painted, with sharp, well defined outlines. In Donna-Belle Garvin, "Family Reunited: A Tale of Two Auctions" New Hampshire Historical Society Newsletter, Volume 29, No. 1, Spring 1991, she suggested that The Puffy Sleeve Artist may have been one James Hosley Whitcomb (1806-1849) based on a signed self-portrait of the artist. She further noted that "Whitcomb was a deaf silhouetist from Hancock - one of the first New Hampshire students to attend at state expense the American Asylum in Hartford, Connecticut, established for the hearing impaired."  The frame is carved from single piece of white pine, made without a rabbit, and having an upright oval glazed opening with softly rounded edges that feather out to a flat façade that is completely covered in an elaborate and highly competent delightful array of free-hand painted decoration.