The artist's youngest daughter is depicted on a step-stool. Altogether there are three highly differentiated, quietly reserved portraits of Ila.

"How averse I was to these long, tiring sittings, and I would never have been persuaded to do it without a traditional reward. My father painted me when I was just four years old ... and then again when I was five ... I can no longer remember those sittings; only the last one is still clearly before my eyes ... I was an ungrateful model, tormenting myself and all around me. When I was allowed to look at the picture after the sitting, I was never satisfied either, found myself ugly and gave my father all kinds of good advice," recounts Ila in her book "My Father Albin Egger-Lienz", published in 1939.

The viewer is directly confronted with the person portrayed, depicted in the center of the painting and from the front. During his stay in St. Justina by Bozen, Albin Egger-Lienz intensified his encounters with contemporary Italian art. The objective presentation of the child, the concentration of the motif in an empty space, and the coloration reduced to black, red and ocher refer to tendencies of the "Pittura Metafisica", but also to representatives of "Neue Sachlichkeit".
Angelika Gillmayr