Leon Wyczółkowski, Portrait of a Woman

Wyczółkowski painted Portrait of a Woman in 1883 using the technique of oil on canvas. The painting depicts the bust of a young girl. The model is facing the viewer in profile, with poppies woven into her dark hair. Unusually for him, the artist has used chiaroscuro to emphasise the woman's exposed body. Another eye-catching aspect is that she is positioned in such a way that the viewer cannot see her facial features. The background is treated schematically, being a patch of colour, in similar tones to the scarves covering the model's shoulders. The identity of Wyczółkowski's muse is unknown, but because of its beauty the painting is often referred to as Portrait of a Gypsy Woman. The work comes from the Warsaw period. It can be seen that Wyczółkowski was an outstanding colourist and perfectly mastered the modelling of figures with the use of chiaroscuro.