Can anyone help give me information on a family artifact? (pics inside)

[Slit518]

This vase? was in my grandmother's curio cabinet for the longest time. It is tradition in her family to pass the vase down to a daughter or granddaughter. My grandmother was born in 1940 to give you an idea of how old she is.

She had received the vase from her grandmother who came from Scandinavia (I believe Sweden) to the USA. As far as I know, she came over from Sweden with the clothes on her back and this vase, not sure why, but it must of been important to her for some reason. We aren't sure who gave it to my grandmother's grandmother, but we believe it was her mother or grandmother. Unfortunately the information stops there.

My grandmother has since given it to her daughter, who has 3 daughters, all of which have daughters. So I am excited to see in the future who ends up with it.

Anyway, we know very little about it. What period is it from? I couldn't find a mark of a maker on there, nor a date.
What style is this?
Who is the girl in the picture? She looks like a simple commoner, but why would somebody paint this of her?
What significance would this be? The girl looks young, maybe pre-teen to teen I assume.
Would this be a courtship gift? Friendship? The royal baker? Maybe a long lost relative of mine from way back when?

This piece has always intrigued me because there are so many questions. I hope some of you folks out there who are very knowledgeable in these sorts of things can provide answers. If only I could cast Identify on it and see its past!

 

[Slit518]

It seems none are familiar.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to where I might be able to find information on such a thing?

 

[Deset Gled]

Short of taking it to a professional antiques appraiser, I would probably go on eBay once a week and see if I could find anything similar. If you can find vases that look like it, hopefully you'll get bits and pieces of info from different listings to identify it. This is likely a very slow process (easily over a year of casual watching), but it doesn't seem like you're in a hurry.

On a related note, most things that I see by searching variants of "portrait" and "vase" on eBay that look similar appear to be Austrian in origin.

 

[Slit518]

If that were the case, that would leave more questions for my ancestry-- considering my grandma's grandmother came from Sweden
Unless of course there is a long story there...

 

[Ulfgeir]

We did have come ceramic-factories here in Sweden (and some are quite famous), though I believe they always signed their stuff. Antiques is definitively not my cup of tea, so I second the idea of taking it to an expert. Yes, it will probably cost a bit, unless you can be lucky and get it the equivalent of Antiques Roadshow, or something like that.

 

[Slit518]

If it were an ink stamp, I wonder if it rubbed off over time?

I also wonder why the designer's mark was not left at the bottom at least (like an engraving or imprint).