A charming portrait of a continental lady dressed in the fashion a-la-mode of the 1890s. Her hair is styled into a coiffure and she wears a large diamond brooch that sparkles with light.

The coiffure was a ‘must-have’ hairstyle in the 1890s as this article from 1894 explains:

“A potent factor in any woman‘s appearance is her coiffure. Indeed, no other item of her toilette is really so influential, either to emphasize or to lessen her natural attractiveness, since no fashion is so capable of affecting the actual expression of her countenance as is one that pertains to the arrangement of the hair.”

The portrait is housed within a beautiful renaissance-style Cassetta frame that’s likely to be the original.