If I tell you that the figure of the young woman that we feature this week dates from about 1900, you probably don't need to be a ceramics expert to work out that she is not likely to be English.

The dress is cut just a shade too low, the skirt raised a bit too high, even if she has been paddling. It is all too risqué to be the work of the Staffordshire potters of the late Victorian or early Edwardian period.

She's got to be foreign. If you thought French or German, then you are on the mark. By their standards she could be regarded as a bit on the modest side.

In fact, everything about her including subject, material, decoration and style screams continental. She is absolutely typical of the decorative figures that any number of European factories turned out in huge quantities and they did them very well.

Looking at the technical detail of the piece: she stands 17in tall and she is a bisque, or "biscuit" figure, which is to say unglazed porcelain that has then been hand painted.

The subject is appealing – a young woman who has been paddling in the sea or wading in a river, carefully holding up her dress and carrying her dainty red shoes in her right hand to keep them dry and clean. The little dog is rather fun – a spaniel perhaps – running around, eyeing those red shoes.

The girl and dog are positioned on a stand, decorated with a rather nicely hand-painted floral panel.

It is possible that she was once one of a pair, the other figure being perhaps a young male companion to stand on the other side of the display. However, the owner who brought her in to one of the Thursday morning valuation clinics at the Angel Suite in Brigg had no knowledge of a second figure ever being in the family.

We have an impressed mark on the base – L & M – but those initials have been used by a number of potteries over the past century and a half, including one in Japan and one in Wales. At the time of writing, we are still doing our research to see if we can pin down exactly which factory did produce her.

With a figure like this, condition is very important to collectors – and there are lots of little bits and pieces of the sculpture that could very easily be chipped or broken with careless handling – but the news is good. There is minor wear to the base but otherwise condition is very good, particularly for a piece of porcelain that is now about 110 years old.

So, on to the question of value.

The market for ceramics is hardly roaring away at the moment and figures such as this are off the levels they were achieving a few years ago. She is a little out of fashion.

That said, there are keen collectors out there and we like her – she is a high quality object, cute and fun.

When she goes under the hammer in the auction at the Dunlop Way rooms this weekend we expect her to make £200-£300. Had there been a matching second figure, then the price would have been much higher, £500-£600 or more.

The viewing sessions for the sale are on Friday afternoon until 7pm and on Saturday morning from 8.30am until the start of the auction at 9.30am.