portrait of an old lady (Geheimrat Jost)

Portrait of an Old Lady (Geheimrat Jost) by Franz von Lenbach, dated around 1900 and held in what was the Führermuseum collection, depicts a woman of evident social standing — the title Geheimrat (privy councillor) indicating her husband's or her own position in the official hierarchy of the German Empire. Lenbach's late portraits of elderly women are among his most psychologically penetrating works: freed from the ambitions and social conventions of younger sitters, these women present faces shaped by long experience that Lenbach's tonal technique rendered with particular empathy and directness.

Lenbach brings his characteristic glazing technique to the old woman's face, building up layers of translucent colour that give the skin its characteristic warm depth. The architecture of the aged face — its planes, shadows, and the accumulated traces of expression — is rendered with close, unsentimental attention.