A highly accomplished oil on canvas portrait by Héléna Darmesteter (British, 1854-1923).
The sitter identified on a label to the reverse as ‘Mrs Gallagher’.
Darmesteter was born in London as the daughter of a French school teacher and the editor of the first Jewish women’s periodical Marion Hartog Moss.
She studied painting in Paris under Gustave Courtois, during which time she met her husband the celebrated French ‘man of letters’ Arsène Darmesteter.
She became a successful portraitist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1891 and 1894, the Exposition Universalle in Paris in 1900 and at the the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions in 1907 and 1908.
Signed upper right and indistinctly dated.
Measurements: H: 18” (46cm); W: 15” (38cm).