Please could someone date and restore

[trish18]

Please could someone date this photograph & explain the floral display around it?

Restoration, if possible, would also be appreciated.

Regards

Trish

* Moderator comment:  image cropped to remove white space *

[PrueM]

Hi Trish,

Not a lot to go on with the lady's dress and hair as it's hard to see...I would guess at 1920s sometime.  The floral display I think is just decoration.  It looks like the lady has been cropped out of a bigger photograph and enlarged a little bit (that's why she's fuzzy - this is before proper enlargers were invented), and the decoration is just there to fill empty space.

Someone else might be able to tell if there is a significance to the type of flowers and foliage used.

Cheers
Prue

[Lynntony]

Best I could do with it

Tony

[chinakay]

I think it may well be a memorial portrait. The flowers are lilies, which are often associated with death/mourning (remember the "Mummy" card on the arrangements of lilies on Princess Diana's casket?)....and this photo was the only or the best one they had of the subject.

Would the date fit?

Cheers,
China

[trish18]

Prue, thanks for your feedback. It didn't occur to me that this may have been cropped from a larger photograph, (I'm not very well up on photography, as you can probably guess!)  

I did wonder if it may have been a memorial photograph of someone  who has died, what with the lilies etc.,
but your suggestion about filling in empty space is certainly very plausible.

Tony, thanks ever so much for the brilliant restore job, you're very clever.  She surely looks a lot better after a nice clean up!  


Kind Regards

Trish

[trish18]

China,

I have no idea who the lady in the photograph is!

It was amongst some photographs that belonged to my Grandfather and I was hoping to get it dated to try to
figure out who she could be. The lilies also made me wonder if it was some sort of memorial photograph?

Regards

Trish

[chinakay]

Anything printed on the back? Is it a postcard?

[PrueM]

Of course, I didn't associate these lovely lilies with memorials - I was thinking of those awful "death lilies" as I call them - arum lilies are they?  But I remember the wreath on Diana's casket now that China has mentioned it    so that makes sense.

Trish, it may have been a friend or distant rellie of your grandmother's, and not close family, so unfortunately you may never know who it is     Not wanting to be too negative about it, but we have to be realistic, and not all the photos our families kept were of relatives (although of course most are).
 
Cheers
Prue