Portrait of Lina Kirchdorffer

Portrait of Lina Kirchdorffer at the Neue Pinakothek, also painted in 1871, places Leibl's sustained interest in female portraiture beside his more celebrated images of rural Bavarian women. Kirchdorffer was a Munich figure — the portrait belongs to his urban career before he retreated to the Bavarian countryside in search of subjects uncontaminated by modernity. The painting's psychological directness — the sitter's composed, self-possessed gaze — reflects Leibl's fundamental conviction that portraiture should record what is actually there, not what the sitter would prefer to present to the world.

The handling of Lina Kirchdorffer's face and costume shows Leibl's developing mastery of layered oil technique, with thin glazes used to build up the depth of tone in the hair and dress while the face receives more direct, loaded brushwork. The treatment of fine fabric details anticipates the extreme precision of his later work.