Marion Lenbach (1892–1947), the Artist's Daughter

Franz von Lenbach's portrait of his daughter Marion (1892-1947), painted in 1900 when she was approximately eight years old, is a late work by the most powerful portrait painter in Wilhelmine Germany. Lenbach dominated Munich portraiture for decades, his old-master-derived style and ability to flatter powerful sitters making him enormously sought after. His portrait of Marion belongs to a long tradition of intimate portraits of artists' children, but Lenbach brings to it the same technical assurance that he applied to images of Bismarck and the Kaiser. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds this as a touching domestic work by an artist better known for official grandeur.

Lenbach renders his young daughter with the warm, Rembrandtesque tonality he applied to all his portrait subjects — rich browns and golden highlights building the face from deep shadow. The child's fresh complexion is rendered with delicate impasto in the light areas, against the darker, looser background treatment characteristic of his studio practice.