Featured Oil on canvas portrait of a young lady

Hi, Hope you are all having a great festive season, I picked this up from auction recently and it measures 52cm x 45cm with a very nice solid oak frame. It appears to be unsigned but does have a name verso on canvas frame.

 

more pics

 

and more pics

 

last 2 pics

 

Would you be kind enough to post a photograph of the full name? It appears to be cropped here.

Debora

 

Nice.

 

She's very sweet. A girl. A "young lady" would have her hair up.

Debora

 

The name might be of the sitter/subject.

 

Shes pretty but looks very sad to me.

 

She does look sad. Not pensive. Sad.

Debora

 

Very nice painting, Best I can come up with as regards signature is Ms Cochita Ca - - - [Cochita - Mexican slang it refers to someone being really adorable ] and, she is really adorable but sad. If you could take a close up of last name on its own and with help from some of the forumers who can work wonders as regards highlighting same ,maybe it might help in deciphering the name.

 

It would be helpful to know in what part of the world she was found. And what did the auction house say about her?

Debora

 

Hi, Thanks for your continued interest, always impressed with your depth of knowledge among all contributors. Debora, there were no clues from the auction house who were Andrew Smith & Sons, Alresford, Hampshire, England UK. Here are the best photos of the writing

 

Looks like French to me

 

If it will do no harm, you'll want to slip the canvas out of the frame and see if an artist's signature is concealed on an edge.

Debora

 

I can see all of the edges but there would be about 1cm of the front bottom area that is concealed where the signature could be. I'm not inclined to do that at the present moment as it is crudely nailed in at an angle in four places into the oak frame

 

I think the first letter is M. for Marie. Ms. wasn't widely used until the 1970s (and even then it was controversial.)

Debora

 

OK, not great but I think I made a bit of it clearer?

 

An amazing improvement. Doesn't look like English, does it?

Debora