19th c. Madame Portrait

She sat still long enough for a painter to catch her, a woman in a lace cap with her hands folded, and here she has stayed ever since. Found deep in the Le Perche forest at a dealer's stone house and dating to the 19th century, it is an oil portrait gone dark and softly cracked with age, the paint webbed all over in fine craquelure. Portraits like this were painted to keep someone in the family's memory, and though her name is long lost, her steady look has outlasted everyone who knew it. Sylvie leans her on a mantel or a stack of books, an instant ancestor watching over the room.