Doug,
The other possibility is that the artist intended to have blue or green shades. Take a look at Bouguereau's Portrait of Miss Elizabeth Gardner and the two paintings that follow on page 3 of this website:
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2...ouguereau2.asp It might also be possible that the artist you noticed were attempting to do the same and had the results suffer from the possibilities that Karin noted.