Portrait of a Woman

In that same year of 1924, Ants Laikmaa painted two portraits of the Estonian poetess and writer Lydia Koidula (1843–1886), one of the writer Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882), and also a study of an old man. Portrait of a Woman stands out due to its particular elaboration, yet the way the light falls on the model’s face deserves to be highlighted especially. The person that is being depicted thereby acquires a kind of inner glow. Her face comes to the fore from the background discreetly yet clearly. While many of Laikmaa’s portraits of cultural figures are formal and stately, ignoring psychological or emotional depths, in the case of Portrait of a Woman, he has tried to delve into the quiet and reflective nature of the person, the perception of the world reflected in the expression of her face, her eyes and her bearing.