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Portrait of a Peasant Woman (Girl with Nose) (Bildnis einer Bäuerin [Mädchen mit Nase])

Paula Modersohn-Becker

European Art

Paula Modersohn-Becker was an innovative painter and self-portraitist of the Worpswede artist colony in northern Germany. As her unsentimental, distilled style evolved, her husband, a more traditional artist, lamented her tendency to draw figures with “hands like spoons” and “noses like cobs.” Sitting somewhere between portraiture and caricature, this etching is an introspective work that subverts the fin de siècle trope of depicting women as idealized embodiments of nature.
MEDIUM Etching and aquatint on wove paper
  • Place Made: Germany
  • DATES 1899-1902, printed 1922-1923 in Worpswede
    DIMENSIONS image: 3 15/16 × 5 1/2 in. (10 × 14 cm) sheet: 6 15/16 × 8 7/8 in. (17.6 × 22.5 cm)  (show scale)
    MARKINGS Verso stamped lower left in black: "F/R" (F.G. Rice, Lugt 1042a); verso stamped: "Brooklyn Museum/Brooklyn, N.Y." (Lugt 307a)
    SIGNATURE Signed, "Paula Modersohn- Becker" signed by otto Modersohn and the printer
    INSCRIPTIONS Bottom left in graphite: "No. 3/f/ Paula Modersohn-Becker. O. Modersohn"; bottom right in graphite (faint): "c. 593."
    COLLECTIONS European Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 51.150.1
    CREDIT LINE Frederick Loeser Fund
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION Paula Modersohn-Becker (German, 1876-1907). Portrait of a Peasant Woman (Girl with Nose) (Bildnis einer Bäuerin [Mädchen mit Nase]), 1899-1902, printed 1922-1923 in Worpswede. Etching and aquatint on wove paper, image: 3 15/16 × 5 1/2 in. (10 × 14 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Frederick Loeser Fund, 51.150.1 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 51.150.1_bw_IMLS.jpg)
    STATE IIb/II
    IMAGE overall, 51.150.1_bw_IMLS.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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    RIGHTS STATEMENT No known copyright restrictions
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