(Pennsylvania/Britain/French, 1823–1903)

Playing Dress-up-Little Red Riding Hood, signed lower right "S. Anderson", oil on canvas, 22 x 27 in.; original 19th century gilt wood and composition frame, 33-5/8 x 38-5/8 in.

Provenance: Charles Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (old tag verso); Private Collection, Knoxville, TennesseeNote:

An important female genre painter, Sophie Gengembre grew up in Paris, France where she began her studies in art. Her parents moved to Ohio in 1849 and she continued her studies. It was there Sophie met and married the artist, Walter Anderson. They primarily lived in Great Britain, but she exhibited extensively in the United States including National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and, at the Boston Athenaeum among others. She enjoyed great popularity throughout Europe and America, with some of her paintings made into chromolithographs by the Louis Prang Company.

This charming composition depicts a child's imagination reenacting the fairy tale by overturning a trash basket to prop up a 'wolf' using a fox pelt.

lined and restretched on old stretcher, crackle with cupping cleavage and flaking at right edge; frame with original gilt surface with losses to composition