help request: where is her hand?

[Leigh Anne]

The attached photo is giving me some real trouble!

Can anyone figure out what is going on with this woman's left hand? Is she perhaps wearing a black glove? How would you handle restoring this?

My initial thought is to try to make this area mostly black and maybe blur it to draw less attention to it.

Other suggestions?

Thanks!
--Leigh Anne

[DJ Dubovsky]

Do you know anything about this woman? Maybe a relative can give you some info. The bend of her elbow doesn't look normal to me and when magnified I see bits of her waistline but nothing to indicate a hand or fore arm. Now I'm making a big leap here but is it possible she doesn't have an arm??? Plus you can see the triangle space just under the arm pit and it gives a hint to what I think my be a missing appendage. That sleeve almost appears to be folded back and tacked. When I first saw it my thought was what's wrong with her arm not where is her hand. It's just an educated guess on my part and not much help for you when you have to deal with something there. You could add a fore arm and hand from somewhere else but I would question the owners of the picture about the woman first.
DJ

[Leigh Anne]

Yes, I might have to resort to asking for more info. However, I'm doing the restoration as a surprise Christmas gift for my boyfriend's mother (the woman pictured is his great grandmother) and I'd hate to ruin the surprise! I might have to workaround it for now, then change it later if I find out some new family info...

--Leigh Anne

[chiquitita]

DJ is right, the only other thing I can think of is that she has her arm bent across her back - this wouldn't be a normal pose for back then I don't think.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Nothing like being caught between a rock and a hard place huh? Perhaps your boyfriend can ask other members of the family for you. You have a good idea to fix it one way and then have a seperate removeable layer for the added arm. Tough call and I don't envy your position. I hope you will share the results of the suprise with us. Curious to find out if there's an arm or not. It sure looks funny though doesn't it?
DJ

[Trimoon]

The hand is behind her back. Try inverting the image; you can see the crease in the sleeve going down and under. The arm disappears behind her back.

[winwintoo]

I agree with Trimoon and Chiquita - it looks like her arm is bent behind her, but whose hand is the little girl holding on to??

It looks like there is a man's hand there - maybe your inquiries will uncover some family drama

Margaret

[Mig]

I could be wrong, but it looks to me like her arm is in front and she's wearing a glove.
The strongest evidence to support this is a shadow under her left arm that travels down her hip. This shadow appears to go much too far down her hip if her arm was behind her. Try putting your own arm behind your back, as you may guess it is in the picture and look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if the shadow for that arm, even with a poofy sleeve, would appear so low and long.
Now put your arm in front of your body and ask yourself the same thing... can the shadow appear on the hip, considering the lighting in the picture, etc. I believe it could, but not if the arm was behind her.
Furthermore, the thing that may be her hand with the glove at her belly has the right lighting to establish potentially that it is a glove, her hand lightly fisted, back of hand towards sky, and, whatever it is, hand or not, the reflection reinforces the strength of the shadow on her hip if her arm were in front, not behind.
Lastly, in a dignified, formal pose such as this, why would the woman have her hand behind her back?
I could be wrong.
M

[DannyRaphael]

Hi Leigh Anne...

You might consider some digital surgery and creative cropping to draw attention away from the distraction.

Do get rid of Uncle Fester's big hand around the little girls' waist, while you're at it!

This is a quick hack to give you an idea.

I see you're from Portland... Go Blazers (they whipped Golden State in a preseason game by 24 Wed. night)

- - - - -
Mig:

RE: "In a dignified, formal pose such as this, why would the woman have her hand behind her back?"

To hid the gin and tonic, perhaps?

- - - - -
~DannyR~

[BigAl]

I think I agree with DJ about the woman having no forearm. I think Mig's shadow is caused by the sleeve of the dress being tucked into the waistband.

If I step back from the pic and look at it, I can see nothing to guide my eye to a forearm/hand.

Beautiful woman though.

[Sanda]

I've been looking at this pic for quite some time. I don't think her arm is behind her back as it would be a very unusual pose for the period as Chiquitita
said. It's very hard to tell where exactly it goes but I would have to say either she didn't have a forarm or she has it behind her back, but why she would pose like that beats me. So the only logical conclusion I can make is the same as DJ, I can't see any forarm.

[angue]

I would agree that there seems to be no hand in the picture. However, given the era this picture was taken I don't think that they would immortalize a lost hand unless it was a badge of honor. I think they would at least hide or camouflage a lost hand.
My recommendation would be to crop the picture and just focus on the upper torso with a vignette.

[Trimoon]

I say it’s behind her back. However it could be in her pocket; this is a very common pose for the period.

[VisualEyes]

My subjective vote goes with the behind the back sentiment.

I believe that the pose is 100% appropriate since the lady is apparently cropped out of a larger composition wherein the child is the center of the arrangement (sitting on dad's lap?) and the lady is maternally standing behind on the opposite side of dad.

I think the back/front confusion comes about from the angle of the wrinkle/crease-line in the waist area of the lady's dress that seems to suggest that the arm is continuing in front of the torso. If you ignore that crease, the arm appears to go naturally behind the torso.

[T Paul]

This is a difficult one to tell. Please let us know what the answer ends up being. For now, I played around cloning the nearby pixels to see if they would give a clue. The arm could be behind her back, but I just don't know.

~T