Portrait of Anna Schaumburg with a doll 1886

Lovis Corinth painted this portrait of Anna Schaumburg with a doll sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The late 1800s was a time of shifting social norms, particularly around gender and class. Portraits of children became increasingly popular among the rising middle class as a means of displaying family prosperity. Notice how Anna’s dark clothing contrasts with her doll's bright red dress. Corinth uses color to emphasize the doll's artificiality, highlighting the constructed nature of childhood itself. We see the young girl holding a chair as if it is a prop. There is a sense of both innocence and self-awareness in her gaze. Corinth captures a moment in which childhood is both performed and experienced. Corinth seems less interested in idealizing childhood and more attuned to the complex, sometimes contradictory, emotions experienced in the transition from childhood to adulthood.