Portrait of Marianne Brockhaus in Leipzig

1899

Otto Greiner

(German, 1869–1916)

Culture

Germany

Medium

Pen lithograph

Measurements

Sheet: 58.1 x 46.2 cm (22 7/8 x 18 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 2025.145

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

In addition to this portrait, Otto Greiner also designed an ex-libris (or bookplate) for Brockhaus to use in her prolific book collection.

Description

Otto Greiner favored esoteric themes drawn from dreams, the unconscious, and a timeless classical past. Early on, he apprenticed with a lithographer, giving him proficiency in printmaking that was well-suited to experimentation. Here, Greiner portrayed Marianne Brockhaus, an influential collector of both artworks and books—a practice that was, in her time, still unusual for a woman. Her distant gaze and finger holding her place in a book suggest her intellectual interests, while her precisely rendered dress and chic chignon mark her as fashionable and modern.