Unidentified Artwork

Second attempt.

Can anyone help us to identify the watercolour from the signature or give us any other information which might be useful..many thanks..

Some additional information re the post unidentified artwork.

it was brought to us from a lady who is the great Niece of Sir William Orpen.

It has a date of July 1909 and has been in her family for many years and came from Ireland...the suggestion by the lady who brought it to us was that it may have been painted by Sir William Orpen or one of his friends.

We would greatly appreciate any help with this..

many thanks once again...

The signature looks something like Mc Ilroy to me ,

thats the1909 bit Ed

Well spotted tenpot..it is the 1909 bit...and Ed if you thought the art could possibly be by someone as famous as Sir William Orpen or one of his close clan, wouldn't you put as much effort into trying to identify it as possible....There is also on the backboard some writing which we identify as By...but we can't make out the name...I agree this can be quite addictive....but, so satisfying if we can get to the bottom of it...Oh I have identified that the painting was done in France...its was done in the Gardens of Versailles...Thank you for your input...

themes, I don't really understand what you said above?

Would you clarify please?

xx

Skay,

I am grateful for the comment by Tenpot as we ourselves have had some difficulty initially in "seeing" the date element of the signature.

We know from the owner that the piece was painted at Versaille near the Petit Treon and the owner believes it was done by William Orpen or one of his friends. He was educated at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and friends/colleagues were Paul Nash and Muirhead Bone to name but two.

We have been researching the origin and artist for a week or two now and have unearthed a long list of artists who were close to Orpen and who MAY be the artist.

There are pencil (graphite) inscriptions on the backboard of the original frame that are very difficult to read although we have been using strong light and taking digital images in negative to increase the contrast with some good results. However, though the writing is becoming clearer, the script is proving difficult to decipher. We are now looking to use an Infra Red camera that will hopefully pick up the graphite better.

This text does seem to provide an indication of either where the work was done or by whom. In addition, the framers label, William Marchant and the link to the Goupil Gallery (closed in 1930) is interesting as they used to have art by Whistler, Sickert and John hanging on the walls and we don't think the framing would have been carried out by them if the artist was not well known.

As some of Orpen's previous work as a war artist (1st WW) has realised over $1.3m at auction, we are concerned that we may have a valuable piece of art in our workshop that may well be unknown.

This is what is driving us and seeking help from any source available.

Themes

the william marchant lable is stuck on top of another lable ,unusual to have the signature top right, don't remember fountains surrounded by trees at Versailles

The frame doesn't look to old neither, maybe reframed?

"Ed if you thought the art could possibly be by someone as famous as Sir William Orpen or one of his close clan, wouldn't you put as much effort into trying to identify it as possible"

not sure what you mean by that , of course I would , wouldn't anyone ? as it happens I don't think the quality is anything as good as orpens work , the painting has been reframed , the signature could be anybody , sometimes orpen wrote his name backwards , as in the antiques roadshow prog Nepro mailliw, why not take it to a recognize expert in the field ?, I would if I thought there was the slightest chance .

I'm sure this is no help and you already know this but the original label appears to read Mount and Frame maker Ernest Alden Sloane Square SW. And I'm sure I can also read 'Retailers' and 'telephone' on that label as well.
So it looks like it has been reframed as Ed says above. That's not to say of course, that what is written on the frame now isn't relevant. Just interesting/interested observation. Sorry that isn't much help is it...reading it back.