I'm not a great fan of art featuring babies and toddlers but I came across this piece being sold fairly cheaply and described as an original by Bessie Pease Gutmann (1876-1960). It's a large, original, drawing signed by the artist measuring approximately 26 x 18 inches in frame. Lively, expressive and accomplished piece. Possibly commercial art used to advertise some kind of children's product. There is currently no concrete evidence or provenance of this as a Guttman piece, but in favour of its authenticity it seems relevant that 1) It is clearly an old piece and not created recently (as shown by the foxing) 2) It seems unlikely that someone who was trying to simulate BPG’s style would create something so untypical of her best known work 3) The artist is very accomplished, whoever they are. Some portions of it look a little like the (deceased) British comic artist John Armstrong but I can't think of any reason he would have pretended to be someone else. I'm hoping to find the published version at some point in order to authenticate it as a BPG piece. In the meantime offers are welcome.
