Framed Oil, Young Woman, By Karin Stackelberg-Lagerberg (Swedish, b. 1877)

Framed Oil, Young Woman, By Karin Stackelberg-Lagerberg
 (Swedish, 1877–1957)
Image dimensions: 32x28 cm.
 
 
This intimate half-length study shows her confident, painterly approach to portraiture. The sitter is set against a loosely brushed ground of warm ochre and umber, her dark hair capped with a flash of red. Stackelberg-Lagerberg builds the figure with quick, assured strokes, contrasting the deep green of the jacket with the thickly worked white of the open blouse, where the light falls most strongly. The steady, direct gaze gives the portrait a quiet intensity, while the free handling of paint reflects the influence of her Paris and Munich training. The work sits in a period ribbed gilt and black frame.
 
Born in Gothenburg in 1877, Countess Karin Stackelberg-Lagerberg grew up in a literary household; her father, Magnus Lagerberg, was a writer and memoirist who corresponded with many leading Swedish figures of his day. She trained across three of Europe's artistic capitals: at the Académie Julian in Paris, at the Heymann school in Munich, and in London under the portrait painter Harold Speed. In 1912 she married Count Wolter Stackelberg, a physiotherapist who practised in London, and their son was born in 1914. She worked alongside her sister, the painter Brita Lagerberg, and in January 1915 the two held a joint exhibition of portraits and animal paintings at Gummesons konsthandel, just weeks after the death of her husband. She died in 1957.