Portraits of Viennese Ladies - Raphael Kirchner

An Art Nouveau portrait of a woman in a large feathered hat by Austrian illustrator Raphael Kirchner. This print captures the fashion of early twentieth-century Vienna.

Raphael Kirchner was an Austrian artist and illustrator associated with the Jugendstil movement. He gained recognition for his depictions of women, often produced as postcards or magazine illustrations. This work belongs to his series depicting the fashionable women of Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century. The subject wears an oversized hat adorned with dark green feathers, a characteristic accessory of the Edwardian era. Her attire includes a high, pleated yellow collar that frames her face. The composition uses a muted palette of browns and tans, contrasted by the lime green vertical band on the right edge. Kirchner employs fine lines to define the textures of the feathers and the fabric of the dress. The facial features are rendered with soft shading, giving the subject a calm expression. This piece reflects the aesthetic preferences of the Viennese Secession, where decorative elements and portraiture often merged. Kirchner moved to Paris in 1900 and later to London, where he continued to produce popular illustrations. His style influenced the development of early pin-up art, though his Viennese portraits maintain a formal, decorative quality. The use of flat colour fields and graphic borders is typical of the printmaking techniques used for mass-produced art during this period.