Guarded

This characterful watercolour depicts a young lady seated by a lattice window with a garden view and holding a rosebud to symbolise her youth and hidden beauty. With her hair demurely looped over her ears as was the fashion during the mid-nineteenth century, she wears a black dress with an elongated bodice and wide skirt accessorised with a gold brooch and a long guard chain.

Watercolour mixed with gum arabic on card by an unknown provincial artist housed in a period dark wood frame with a gilt slip (small losses to the veneer mostly confined to one corner).