Dachau Woman and Child

When Leibl painted the miller’s wife of Plon during his stay in Grasslfing near Dachau in 1873/74, his copy of a painting in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, Charlotte Butkens and her Son by Cornelis de Vos must have been in the forefront of his mind. While the woman from the Dachau countryside is less splendidly dressed, her dark costume provided an opportunity to depict a wide variety of textures and colour nuances. The plainer model actually suited Leibl’s concept of ‘honesty’ better, and her monochrome dress allowed him to emphasise the intrinsic value of the painted picture plane. In both cases the mother is rather reserved while the child is more open about confronting the viewer. “The composition of the heads and the hands is very beautiful; it gives the picture an architectural strength. Some viewers might like to ask: ‘Where is the spiritual element in this kind of painting?’ The answer should be: ‘It is in the still-life-like condition of the figures depicted, or if you prefer: in the cosmic still-life-like element of any image.’” (Karl Scheffler)