Portrait of a Woman

Konrad Mägi (01.11.1878-15.08.1925)

1922-1924
Oil on canvas
69 x 56 cm

Konrad Mägi has gone down in the history of Estonian art first and foremost as a landscape painter. Nevertheless, portraits form a significant part of his creative work. It is speculated that Mägi’s inclination to portrait art was not due so much to the inner urge of the artist as to the profitability of that work.
At the same time, we do not so much see a specific person in Mägi’s portraits as the artist’s ideal of beauty – his portraits are painted relatively similarly to each other: the background is modest and renders the depicted subject prominent. Mägi prefers the three-quarter figure instead of the face or the full figure. Clothing and the rest of what surrounds the model is pronouncedly stylised and it approaches decorativeness. Mägi particularly emphasises the face, which also gives the model a shade of sensuality. It is suggested that the model for this painting might have been the wife of a wealthy Tartu bookseller and publisher.