Dame in violettem Kleid (Lady in Violet Dress)

Trübner's 1911 'Dame in violettem Kleid' (Lady in Violet Dress), now in the Auckland Art Gallery, is one of several late female portraits in which he combines his characteristic directness of observation with a more decorative attention to costume color and texture. The violet dress provides a richly saturated field that would have tested and showcased Trübner's color sensibility, which had grown more expansive in his final years as European painting absorbed the color lessons of Post-Impressionism and the Fauves. That this work traveled to Auckland's collection reflects the international reach of German painting's reputation at the time; New Zealand's public collections were actively acquiring European works in the early 20th century. Painted the year before his death, the work demonstrates Trübner's sustained vitality as a painter of figures well into his sixties. The complementary relationship between the violet dress and the sitter's complexion would have been a primary compositional and coloristic concern.

The violet dress is the painting's dominant coloristic statement, and Trübner would have varied its handling between shadow and highlight using related purples, mauves, and blues rather than simply adding black or white to a base hue. The face and hands receive more nuanced treatment with warmer flesh tones creating contrast against the cool violet. Background is likely kept neutral to let the figure command attention.