Portrait of Wilhelmine Wiggenhauser

The sitter here was family. Wilhelmine Wiggenhauser was Böcklin's aunt, a widow whose married name had been Lippe-Rumpf, and he painted her in 1849 when he was in his early twenties and portraits of the people around him were a way to keep practising. There was no commission and no audience for a picture like this. It stayed a private, domestic thing, small and unsigned. Böcklin would become famous for imaginary places and mythical creatures, so it is worth stopping in front of the plain, closely observed face of a real woman he actually knew, an aunt sitting for her nephew.