On the Sofa

Various influences combine to make a masterpiece of this inspired youthful work by the Munich artist Trübner. There are signs of the highly developed painterly techniques of the Leibl School and also of Dutch style. It seems likely that Danish Biedermeier also had a role to play in this. The truly modern aspect of this work is the emphasis on the picture planes. Thus the woman’s dark dress spreads out like a dark stain with colours and objects grouped around it in decorative harmony. The sitter’s expressionless face is visually no more important than her hands or the bread she is holding. Trübner was able to study this kind of close, frontal view and direct observation in Leibl’s work (he had recently acquired a similar portrait from Leibl) and also in that of Courbet, who first exhibited in Munich in 1869 and who deeply impressed Leibl and his friends and colleagues.