Portrait of Silvia Koller, 1914

Broncia Koller-Pinell (1863–1934) was born in the small town of Sanok in Galicia and moved to the imperial capital Vienna in 1870. She began drawing lessons around age 18, followed by two years at Ludwig Herterich’s private school in Munich. Pinell moved back to Vienna in 1890 and opened a studio for portraits and genre paintings. She quickly became a national success and then an international one. Her marriage to doctor and physicist Hugo Koller (1867–1949) and the births of her two children Rupert and Silvia did not interrupt her career. Her daughter Silvia, who was born in 1898, often served as a model for portraits. Here, the mother has painted her 16-year-old daughter sitting on an armchair with her hands folded together. The pose and image detail are reminiscent of portraits by Gustav Klimt (1962–1918), to whom Koller-Pinell was artistically much indebted.

AM, 2019