Sunflowers Still Life Russian Artist

Signed with last name Fedorov ( федоров), first name initial "A", but not sure of the letter after that. On the verso, "My dear niece Lorochka, from loving aunt Galya (not sure of the name)". And then " I wish your life be cloudless like on this painting".
So, I guess the writings on the back are not by the artist, as the signature indicates male name.
Now I have to find if the artist in known or not. The first name could be Aleksei, Anton, Alexander, Andrei, Anatoly ... but if I figure the letter after A, that will narrow the search.

 

Hi Kard!
No clue but love it.

 

One you your nicer paintings.......!

 

Thanks.
Some crazing but it is seen only when held against light. The canvas is glued rather than nailed.

 

There are not many lower-case letters in Russian cursive that have a loop that goes down like that. The only ones I can see that it might possibly be are the letters д, у, з. The lower-case р also goes below the line but if somebody made a loop in it (non-standard) it would go in the opposite direction.

It can't be у due to the fact that the letter has a curve around the top, so that leaves it down to д or з. I'm going to vote for д -- because з should have a short stroke in the middle coming down right at the line, and this does not.

Fig

 

Hm, something else I just noticed. That first part consisting of two letters has quotation marks around it. Do you think it might be a nickname? I don't think Russians would normally indicate things that way, but suppose the person was working in another country and had adopted Western ways? Also, Russians would normally put their initials AFTER the surname.

As you probably know, in Russian lacquer ware, for example, quotation marks are often used around the title of a piece rather than around a person's name. But then again, this is not lacquer ware. And normally the quoted title is either in the middle or the left side of the bottom rather than right next to the name.

So, I'm not sure about this... kind of seems non-standard.

 

Somebody liked Van Gogh ! Is that a date ( 1-30-99 ) ?

 

Hm, that is strange if those are quotation marks. Russians indeed would put the last name first, followed by first name or initial, followed by middle name.
The year is 30th of Jan, 1999 but don't know if the painting was done around that time or earlier.