Woman Carrying Load Through Landscape, Antique on Board Painting Signed WS dotted 8 1/2" across at shoulders

8 1/2" across at shoulders

though it is unsigned and I am not certain of how old it is

) I have also found a very similar one of William McKinley (born a century and a half later

I never tire of these punch paper embroideries

Woman Carrying Load Through Landscape, Antique on Board Painting Signed WS dotted 8 1/2" across at shouldersI read this painting as portraying a figure (whom I take for a woman) carrying a load (looks like bundle of kindling, maybe more) across her back through a winter landscape. The interruption in the bank of trees in the distance, precisely aligned with her position in the foreground, suggests that may be her path rather than to arrive at home at the house at right but either way this feels like a portrait of a place and rural life defined by the