This bust portrait of a young woman establishes Klinger as an outstanding and, at the same time, modern portraitist. Whilst her head, with its serious features and up-do, is rendered in great detail, her dress with its wide flounced collar and the landscape background are merely sketched in. In typical Klinger style, delicate white brushstrokes create subtle highlights on the face. A diffuse application of paint on either side of the head emphasises its three-dimensionality. Klinger dedicated the drawing to Philipp Sparkuhle (1860–1939). The Bremen merchant and art collector had been acting as a private individual since leaving his father’s firm and was a board member of the Kunstverein Bremen. It was probably through its long-standing chairman, H. H. Meier Jr., that he had met Klinger in person in 1893, who had just returned to Leipzig from a stay of several years in Rome. From 1896, Sparkuhle was involved in the publication of Klinger’s print series ‘Vom Tode II’ through the Association for Historical Art, of which Meier had been chairman for many years and which Sparkuhle himself joined in 1898. Sparkuhle was a committed supporter of the early modern art movement. He was a member of the PAN cooperative and the German Artists’ Association, and from 1908 onwards supported the Villa Romana Society founded by Klinger. His art collection comprised some 200 paintings and prints, predominantly by German artists; alongside Menzel and Böcklin, these included, above all, moderate Secessionists such as Stuck, Habermann and Thoma. In the preface to his 1913 collection catalogue, however, he vehemently opposed the ‘most modern eccentric art’. As early as 1911–12, during the Bremen art controversy triggered by the purchase of a painting by van Gogh, he had defended the conservative position of his artist friend Carl Vinnen, whilst Klinger sided with the Kunsthalle director Pauli. It is not known who the subject is. To date, there is no evidence to suggest that she comes from Sparkuhle’s family circle; he married late in life and remained childless. A catalogue of the prints in his 1948 collection, held in the archives of the Kunsthalle Bremen, lists a chalk drawing entitled ‘Bust of a Young Girl’ among three works by Klinger; this is likely to be identical to the drawing discussed here. The reverse of the sheet provides clues as to its chronological context. It shows a framed shoulder portrait of a female figure with her right arm raised vertically, inscribed with ‘SECESSION’. This is a sketch for the cover of a photogravure portfolio by the Munich Secession, which the association published in two different editions in 1893, the year in which Klinger also became a member. –. It is unclear whether the portrait drawing is connected to the Secession title page (Singer 286). The facial features of the two female figures differ greatly. However, the sketch suggests that the portrait should also be dated to this period. Dr. Conny Dietrich