Portrait of a Young Woman

Franz von Lenbach's 1876 portrait of a young woman is characteristic of his sustained engagement with the female portrait as a genre that allowed him to combine his Old Master technical influences with the demands of fashionable modern portraiture. Lenbach's portraits of women were particularly celebrated for their combination of psychological penetration and flattering elegance — he understood how to make his subjects feel both seen and admired. Based in Munich, he attracted sitters from across German-speaking Europe and beyond. The Musée d'Art d'Indianapolis holds this work as part of its German 19th-century holdings.

Lenbach employs his characteristic technique of dark ground with concentrated light on the face, achieving a Rembrandtesque luminosity in the shadows while the highlighted passages are rendered with warm, direct brushwork.