Elusive Man with Beard, Mid-Century Oil Painting pottery bowls Signed (incised) on the bottom

Signed (incised) on the bottom of his feet John M

I have seen pieces of this ilk described as "mixed metal"--I think it is likely lead/pewter

who married in 1877-- it seems possible to me that that Emily could be our Emma

The shorter has a hairline crack on the underside of the base

and though missing the lid of its box

Elusive Man with Beard, Mid-Century Oil Painting pottery bowls Signed (incised) on the bottomTo me, there is something so right about this elusive portrait, painted by an artist unknown to me, but which I know dates to the 1960s or so. Thinly painted on what I believe is an unprimed linen panel board, it seems to me both about the materiality and constructed illusory nature of painting itself and also about the subject himself, doubly veiled in a sense by the painter's treatment, and by his great beard! Hovering in a sort of liminal space, it