Margarethe von Stumm (?)

'Margarethe von Stumm (?),' painted by Lenbach in 1902 with the uncertainty of identification marked by the question mark in its title, depicts a woman connected to the Stumm industrial dynasty—one of the great German coal and steel families of the Wilhelmine era. The von Stumm family's industrial fortune made them significant patrons of German culture, and a Lenbach portrait would have confirmed their social position within the new German plutocracy. The uncertain identification reflects the difficulties of provenance research for works that passed through changing hands across the turbulent twentieth century. The Lenbachhaus holds the work.

Lenbach's technical approach to a wealthy female sitter involves careful rendering of facial features and the decorative elements of dress, jewellery, and hair—the accoutrements that signify social position—against his characteristic loosely painted background that frames rather than competes with the sitter.