This delicate hand-colored, blue-toned study of a blooming tree in New York City’s Central Park may date to the early 1940’s.

Born in Gibraltar, the British stage and screen actor and consummate amateur photographer Hamilton Revelle (1872-1958) later specialized in the bromoil-transfer process after mastering other photographic processes.  The Broadway Photographs website includes background on the artist:

Revelle’s intense interest in photography perhaps derived from the art’s capacity to arrest beauty in timeless perfection. He began carrying his camera equipment with him everywhere and spent his days, before going to the theater in early evening, perfecting his technical mastery of the medium, in platinum, silver, and autochrome. He was an avid experimenter with various printing papers and popularized the print of works on parchment. His portraits were displayed in international salons regularly during the first decade of the 20th century. The Royal Photographic Society of London awarded him its gold medal for excellence in portraiture.

print notes recto: Signed in black ink at lower right within image: Hamilton Revelle; titled at lower left corner of image within support: Spring Central Park.; condition: slight creasing to left and upper support margins.

provenance: Washington, D.C. area estate: acquired for this archive in 2012.