Bildnis einer Dame in schwarzem Kleid mit weißer Halskrause

Leibl's 1870 'Bildnis einer Dame in schwarzem Kleid mit weißer Halskrause' (Portrait of a Lady in a Black Dress with White Ruff) at the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe belongs to the period immediately after his encounter with Courbet at the 1869 Munich exhibition, when he was rapidly expanding his portrait practice. The subject — a woman in a black dress with white ruff — references the long tradition of Netherlandish and Spanish formal portraiture: the white ruff as collar was characteristic of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraits from Hals and Anthonis Mor through Coello and Velázquez. Leibl was deeply interested in these Old Master precedents, and his choice of this sitter's costume may reflect both the actual clothing worn and a deliberate visual reference to the portrait tradition he was positioning himself within.

The black dress and white ruff provide a strict tonal structure: the painting is essentially a study in the relationship between black, white, and flesh tone, with the face as the only warm chromatic element.