We saw this photo and decided to try and identify the lady, and her car. It is easy to see the lines of a Renault but not so easy to distinguish between a 1912 CB or a 1916 FK. The photo is captioned New York 1916, and yet the FK was built between 1917 and 1918. So , dear reader, please come to our rescue - CB or FK ? and perhaps you can also tell us if the coachbuilder was Brewster, or another company?
As for the painted tyres and front bumper - American innovations.
We are happy to identify the lady as Anna Fitziu who was born in 1887 (as Anna Huntington) and started work as a chorus girl in 1902 in New York (now Anna Fitzhugh). Her career developed as she sang in operettas, musical comedies and then vaudeville. She studied singing in Paris in 1906 and five years later sang in her first opera in Milan in 1910 as Anna Fitziu. By 1915 she was back in America as a successful soprano.
It is well known that one of Louis Renault's favourite women was opera singer Marthe Chenal and he even built a house for her, but did he ever get together with Anna Fitziu? We like to think so because, like Gabriel Voisin, he had a healthy appetite for the ladies.
Anna died in the early Spring of 1967 after falling down a flight of stairs, but 80 is ripe old age, and since Monday is the first day of Spring we hope you have a spring in your step, but please be careful on the stairs.
(text Robin Batchelor, picture courtesy Shorpy)