Portrait of Alba Schwartz.

Portrait of Alba Schwartz, painted around 1900, depicts a woman from outside Ancher's immediate Skagen fishing community — the name suggesting bourgeois or cosmopolitan connections. Alba Schwartz may have been a visitor to Skagen, a figure from Copenhagen's artistic circles, or a connection through the international network that the colony had developed by 1900. Ancher's portrait of her applies the same observational directness he uses for his fishermen subjects: whatever the social origin of the sitter, his approach remains consistent — a genuine attempt to see and record the individual rather than flatter or typify.

Ancher's portrait of Alba Schwartz shows the adaptability of his portrait method to subjects from different social and physical backgrounds from his usual fishermen. His tonal approach — building the face through careful observation of light — remains consistent across the range of his sitters, the differences between portraits reflecting the differences between individuals rather than deliberate stylistic variation.