Aurelia Della Corte Szvatek - Portrait of a Young Woman in a Shawl

Aurelia Della Corte Szvatek (active c. 1900–1919)

Portrait of a Young Woman in a Shawl, c. 1900–1910

signed lower left “A. Della Corte Szvatek”
oil on canvas
unframed 51 × 41 cm (20.1 × 16.1 in)
framed 73 × 63 cm (28.7 × 24.8 in)

Provenance:
A private collection Norrköping, Sweden.

Condition report:
The painting presents well overall. Please contact the gallery for a more detailed condition report.

Essay:
This elegant portrait of a young woman belongs to the cosmopolitan world of Belle Époque portraiture in which Aurelia Della Corte Szvatek appears to have established her career around the turn of the twentieth century. Although the details of the artist’s life remain surprisingly elusive, surviving exhibition records and works reveal a painter who moved within an international artistic environment and developed a particular interest in the representation of women.

Della Corte Szvatek was active by 1900, when one of her female portraits, Die Rose des Südens, was reproduced in the German publication Moderne Kunst in Meister Holzschnitten. By 1907 she was exhibiting in Paris and was mentioned in the Hungarian art journal Művészet in connection with an interior of San Marco in Venice. The following year she exhibited at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, giving her address as 3 rue Campagne Première in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris. Her contribution was a portrait, confirming that portraiture already occupied an important place in her work.

The present portrait is characteristic of this aspect of her art. The young woman is represented bust length against a restrained olive brown background, her head turned gently towards the viewer. Her dark hair is gathered loosely around the head, forming a strong mass around the pale oval of the face. The expression is composed and self possessed, with the dark eyes providing the psychological focus of the painting.

Della Corte Szvatek concentrates her greatest degree of finish upon the face. Flesh tones of ivory, pink and muted ochre are applied with visible, fluid brushwork, while cooler blue and green notes around the eyes introduce subtle chromatic variation. The mouth is rendered with touches of coral red, giving warmth to an otherwise subdued palette.

Below the face, the handling becomes noticeably freer. A pale cream shawl falls diagonally across the sitter’s shoulders over passages of blue and turquoise. Here the artist allows individual strokes of paint to remain visible, suggesting folds and textures rather than describing them precisely. This contrast between the carefully modelled face and the broader treatment of the costume gives the portrait much of its vitality.

The approach belongs comfortably within the international portrait culture of the Belle Époque. Around 1900, artists increasingly combined the conventions of formal portraiture with a freer handling derived from contemporary French painting. Backgrounds could be deliberately simplified, while costume and accessories were treated as areas of colour rather than meticulously described objects. In the present work, this freedom directs all attention towards the sitter’s face and bearing.

Della Corte Szvatek’s women are frequently presented with a similar sense of individuality. Her known portraits range from Mediterranean types in colourful dress to fashionable women and formal sitters. The recurring emphasis on expressive eyes, dark hair and loosely described fabrics suggests an artist particularly interested in the relationship between likeness and atmosphere.