Portrait of Lizzy Ansingh (1875-1959)

Around 1900 a small group of young women painters in Amsterdam were showing together and making a name for themselves. They were later called the Amsterdamse Joffers, an old-fashioned word for young ladies, and one of them was Lizzy Ansingh, who became best known for her paintings of dolls. She was also Thérèse Schwartze's niece, the daughter of her sister Clara, herself a painter. Schwartze painted her in 1902, when Lizzy was 27. The light falls hard against deep shadow, the brushwork is quick and energetic, and a flash of fiery red sits against the bright green of her clothes. The Rijksmuseum counts it among Schwartze's best portraits. It bought the picture at an Amsterdam auction in 1977.