About the Work
“A kind of portrait in a late evening mood” – is how Klinger referred to the painting he had executed on the terrace of his studio in Rome. Suspended in the vastness of the sky, the woman makes an oddly severe impression. While the figure and background form a unified whole, the latter is more a backdrop than a real landscape. The studies Klinger carried out in the open air represent symbolic spaces reflecting a state of mind. His works later found an echo in the paintings of the Surrealists.
About the Donation
At the request of Mathilde Rathenau (1845-1926), a native of Frankfurt, a number of paintings were presented to the Städel in 1926 in memory of her son Walther Rathenau (1867-1922). Walther Rathenau, an industrialist and one of the co-founders of the German Democratic Party, was appointed foreign minister in January 1922. In June of that year he was assassinated in Berlin by the Organisation Consul, whose aim was to fight the Weimar Constitution.
