A VERY unusual photo please help.

[knightk]

I have recently been given access to a portrait of my husbands grandfather
which at first glance appears to be a painted portrait using some kind of
acrylic type paint but on closer inspection it is obvious that it is a
photograph which has been extensively painted. The only areas to escape
heavy paint are the face and hair, the background is totally hand painted.
It is oval in shape {19in x 14in} and on some form of heavy board, convex
shaped.
The photo would have been taken about 1920/25 around the Wagga NSW area. No
artists signature or studio stamp etc appear anywhere {front or back}.
i am familiar with the usual {common} form of hand touching of photographs
that was extensively practised {rosy cheeks etc} but have never seen
anything anywhere like this.
Anyone seen anything like this or have any suggestions as to where I would
go to attempt to identify the style.
Regards
Karen
Sydney

[alexj]

There was a technique of replacing black areas of the print. First,
chemicall
process dilutes unexposed emulsion and lives jelatine on exposed parts.
Secont, strokes of angle-cut brush lives paint on jelatine and lives
white areas
untoched.
Obviously, this process will not work with Ilford Multygrade RC Paper.
If you want
to use it, you will possibly need to make you own paper :-)

The possible name of the technique is Brom-Oil. I don't know Ehglish
name, so it is
only a guess.

This technique was popular in Europe before WW1 as an alternative to
painted portraits.
It is easy to tell it from painted photograph. Retouched photograph's
colors looks a
bit dirty because paint mixes with gray tones of the photograph.
Brom-Oil
allows you to get clear colors not mixed with grey.

Hope that helps

alexj