How do I find saved text messages

If “Messages” was turned ON in Settings, your name, iCloud then no you cannot retrieve them. Any that were deleted will remain deleted.

If “Messages” was turned OFF in Settings, your name, iCloud then you can restore the entire most recent backup and lose everything else since that date. Without a daily iCloud backup that is probably not feasible. 

Greetings,

"On" in what "setting" exactly? Where?

Briefly I'm just trying to access a particular text exchange that includes a photo I really need for work purposes. For some reason it's not showing up messages or on the contact info, and when I hit it the box where the image was (which that now only has a "?" and "IMG_4337.heic") to download, nothing downloads...it's been at 0 bytes/489KB all day long, very frustrating!

I hope you can help! thanks!

So if it's saved on my iCloud I just want to see if the pic shows up on the backed up version of the text message/image...does that make sense?