Austrian Or Central European School, Portrait Of A Lady With Floral Shawl, Ca. 1825

Austrian or Central European School, Portrait of a Lady in White Dress with Floral Shawl and Long Chain with Pendant, ca. 1825–1835

Oil on canvas, relined

Size: 77 × 62 cm

Half-length portrait of a lady, placed within a painted oval on a dark background, a format frequently used in Biedermeier portraiture. The sitter wears a white dress in light fabric, with short puffed sleeves embroidered with white floral motifs worked directly on the cloth. The waist is tightened by a black belt with a rectangular buckle, typical of fashion between 1820 and 1830.

Her hairstyle, with smooth side bands and a high chignon, is adorned with a small diadem-shaped comb, an accessory widespread in Vienna and Central Europe in the decade 1825–1835. Around her neck she wears a long multi-strand gold chain with flat links, supporting an octagonal faceted stone pendant, probably quartz or lead glass, set in a decorated mount.

The dark shawl with polychrome floral motifs is painted with a particularly interesting technique: the brushstrokes, almost blurred and softly blended, when viewed from a distance recombine into small bouquets of flowers. The result is a decorative effect that combines painterly delicacy with ornamental clarity, in keeping with the Biedermeier taste for colourful textile accessories.

Condition

Good condition. Delicate recent cleaning, with paint surface substantially original and well preserved, showing almost no retouching and retaining a fine period patina.