Portrait of a Girl

Portrait of a Girl, dated 1881 and worked on paper, is among Zorn's earliest surviving portraits, made when he was only twenty-one years old. The anonymous title — not a named commission but a study of a type — suggests this may have been a practice piece or a painting of a known but unpretentious subject, possibly a Dalarnan child or young woman from Mora. Girl subjects offered young painters the combined challenges of capturing youthful complexion, expressing the particular quality of a young person's gaze, and organising a simple but appealing composition. At twenty-one, Zorn's technique was still accumulating its tools, and portraits from this year show him working carefully and observationally rather than with the rapid confidence of his mature style. The work holds historical interest as evidence of the painter's earliest professional formation.

Executed on paper with careful tonal construction reflecting the academic discipline of a young artist building foundations. The approach to the face is patient and observational, building form through overlapping marks rather than the bold, directional strokes of mature Zorn. The result is more laboured but attentive to the specific innocence of a young subject.