Another mystery photo to date please

[twilight]

This photo has a strange look about it as if it may have been touched up, but perhaps it a copy of an earlier photo.  Any comments & any idea of a date appreciated.
The card is a bit like blotting paper, but just a little thicker & plain on the reverse.

[chinakay]

Judging from what little we can see of the hairstyle and collar, I would think mid-late 1870s.

The image would seem to have been imported, perhaps from a group, and enlarged slightly. Before the invention of the photographic enlarger, the results would have the fuzzy quality we see. The edges have been touched up in an attempt to make the hair look somewhat normal, but not very well.

I would think this is a memorial photo, made after the woman's death. Very common, as your other one.

Any printing on the back?

Cheers,
China

[twilight]

Hello  China,

 Unfortunately there is nothing written on the back of this photo to give us any clues.  The original is about postcard size, perhaps a little smaller.
 I have just noticed that her eyebrows have been touched up, or should i say "messed up" too.

 I wonder how old she would be in this photo?  Would anyone like to have a guess?
 
 Twilight
 

[IgorStrav]

Early to mid twenties?  She's certainly not very old

[chinakay]

Mayyybe 30ish, at a push.

Her eyes have been heavily retouched...she must have been very indistinct.

[Wiggy]

Is she wearing English clothes do you think - seems to me her costume looks like traditional dress from Europe somewhere -  from what little can be seen!  Her face also looks Eastern European to me - fanciful or not?

What do you think?

Wiggy   

[maidmarianoops]

sylvia

[twilight]

Thank you all for your helpful comments & Sylvia, thanks so much for tidying up a very special photo.
We now are quite certain that it is G grandmother, Lydia, b.1858. which would mean she was about 21 when the original photo was taken, maybe around the time of her marriage in 1879. The only problem is, she died in 1948. So, China, I am thinking it may have been done as a keepsake for my grandfather when he went away to school or later when he joined the navy. He left home in Dorset when he was 11years old, went to Greenwich Hospital School & subsequently joined the R.N. He left England in 1913, never to return.

 I am interested in your comments about her appearance, Wiggy. I just had an email from a distant cousin, (descended from this lady's sister) who thought the same & was intrigued by the beads & wondered if there may have been a Romany connection.   However, she has heard from her G grandmother That she had Spanish heritage.  Neither of us has turned up anything vaguely Spanish, but this lady's mother was 'base born'  So, perhaps my 3x G Grandfather was a Spaniard.  I guess we will never Know?
 
I have hopefully attached a photo of Lydia (cropped from a family photo, taken around 1900), we are fairly certain it is the same lady. I think in this photo she looks a bit like she has been upholstered.