Female portrait

The painting offers a bird’s eye view of a woman. Seated in a chair, she seems to be miles away, her folded hands possibly suggesting a silent prayer. Represented here is the whole figure of the sitter, turned slightly to the left, the head bowed; she is composed and calm. Next to her is a basket, and behind her a fragment of a table.

The upper part of the woman’s silhouette has a soft brown contour, and a more subtle blue one where her legs are. She is wearing a long delicately draped dress, its top part loose-fitting, its arms folding. The shawl is covering her hair almost entirely, with only a few strands of it in sight on the right. There are scarcely any physiognomical details on her face. The figure seems unreal, almost mystical, as though she appeared to the artist only for a short moment. Dominant here are misty pink, blue and white. Unprimed fragments are visible along the edges of the work. The silhouette delicately stands out from the background in a harmonious composition. The portrayed person is not sensuous, it is her mysticism that is foregrounded. The scene exudes an aura of calm mingled with mystery. Despite the fact that the painter’s muse is a manual worker like the other persons depicted in the cycle, his respect for and glorification of her work is clearly discernible.

Paintings from this cycle provide a conclusion to Leopold Gottlieb’s body of work, being his last narrative, a recapitulation of his unordinary life and artistic career.