Max Liebermann (1847-1935)

Executed in the summer of 1898 Nähende Mädchen in Huyzen is part of a series of studies that Liebermann painted of these four girls. This sketch-like painting is a cropped version of a larger composition, with the viewpoint taken from the right making the four girls the focus point of the picture. In this painting the girls are sitting more compactly together than in Liebermann’s other studies from this series. Nähende Mädchen in Huyzen is an early example of Liebermann’s expressive brushwork and vigorous painterly manner, which would come to characterize the artist’s later works.

Max Liebermann first gained recognition in the 1880s and 1890s with his naturalist paintings of common workers. In his early works Liebermann was influenced by the Realism of Gustave Courbet and Jean-Franois Millet, and this is exemplified in Nähende Mädchen in Huyzen, where Liebermann depicts the reality of these working girls without idealising it.