The Love Letter, n. d.

The work shows two women of different ages sitting at a table in a dark, furnished room: The old lady points to a certain passage in the letter held by the young girl. She might be giving her a well-meaning interpretation of a particular line in the love letter or raising a concern. With this depiction, Oskar Laske (1874–1951) revisited a typical genre scene from the 19th century. Both the detailed rendering of the interior as well as the work’s moral aspect have a retrospective character. The painting might be from the artist’s early period, during which he schooled himself on works by other painters. For the trained architect Laske – who studied under Otto Wagner (1841–1918) at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts – was self-taught in the medium of painting.

AK, 2021