A young girl by Moses B. Russell, circa 1845.

This is an engaging interesting comparison to the miniatures of Russell's wife, Clarissa Peters Russell.
 
Set in the original gold engine turned locket frame with cast foliate border, the reverse with aperture containing braided hair.
 
2 1/4 inches high.
 
Moses B. Russell (1810-1884) an apparently untrained artist, worked for fifty years, first as a miniaturist, portrait painter and later as a daguerreotypist.  A native of Woodstock New Hampshire, Russell married and spent most of his life in Boston, exhbiting at the Boston Athenaeum, the Harding Gallery, the Boston Art Association and the Boston Mechanic's Association.  During the years 1854 - 1861, when Russell worked in New York and Philadelphia, he exhibited at the American Institute of the City of New York.  Russell was married to miniaturist Clarissa Peters, who exhibited as Mrs. Moses B. Russell.