Lost Gallery: The Journey of a Portrait

A Portrait's Journey. This is the last stage. No matting, just another discarded studio portrait of someone that was very important for a long time. Her eyes tell you that she was a gentle person. She was small and outgoing. She loved being around people. Yes, she worked hard, lost too much, sacrificed daily, for her life. The wisp of grey over her left eye tells us a lot. And she is maybe 10 years younger than she appears here. And she was loved and treasured for a very long time.
	The Original Portrait. The portrait began its life as a couple. The man's shoulder is barely visible on the lower right. The portrait of the couple was in a large format, probably about a 7X9 picture frame with an oval mat. Then, the man was lost.
Journey of a Portrait This is stage two. The husband is lost but the woman is highly regarded and her photo carefully saved. There are very faint lines visible in the original that show the size of mat where it spent the second part of its journey. It is now cut down to fit a smaller oval mat. It's probably placed a photo album, since the picture itself was not trimmed to an oval shape to fit an oval frame.
	The Journey of a Portrait, stage three. The portrait is again cut down and tilted this time. It is placed again in a smaller oval mat, again probably a pre-formatted photo album. Then finally, no one remembers her. She is only the bit of cardboard and color you see at the top. The old family photo album is a valuable antique. The photographs are removed and tossed into a shoebox, later into a pile of photographs to be sold. The empty photo album is sold for maybe more than a hundred dollars, depending on its condition. The loose photographs are sold for change, maybe even just thrown away. This one has been rescued.