Q131586062

Dating to 1874, this work is among the earliest in the Kunsthaus Zürich's Hodler holdings. At twenty-one Hodler had only recently arrived in Geneva, where he studied under Barthélemy Menn — a painter who had himself trained under Ingres and Corot and who instilled in the young Swiss artist a discipline of careful observation and structural clarity. In 1874 Hodler was producing portraits, genre scenes, and landscapes in a style still shaped by academic conventions, yet already showing the directness and psychological seriousness that would distinguish his later work. His circumstances were modest; he relied on portrait commissions and small exhibition sales. That these early canvases entered the Kunsthaus collection testifies to the institution's eventual commitment to preserving Hodler's complete artistic biography, including its formative chapters before the Symbolist breakthrough of the 1890s.

Early Hodler canvases of this period are painted with a careful, somewhat tight application characteristic of academic workshop training. Menn's influence is apparent in the attention to tonal gradation and restrained colour. Drawing underpins the composition, with paint applied in orderly layers rather than the bold zones of his later mature manner.