Dr. Moeller & Cie Kunsthandel

This intense portrait study of a rather contemplative lady in a hat makes clear yet again Adolph Menzel’s particular fascination with folds, hair and other nervous details, that lent an everyday appearance to his surroundings. By contrast, Menzel used careful blending to make the soft contours of the face into much more than a portrait sketch, one that conveys to the viewer the interiority of the sitter’s gaze. A thematically related drawing from the same period of the artist’s work is in the Georg Schäfer collection in Schweinfurt (Fig. 1).