Bittersweet beauty: an etching by Eduard Einschlag

The elegant turn-of-the-century lady, dressed in the height of fashion, has a sad story to tell. Although this is just speculation on my part, I believe the model is Louise Victoria Einschlag, the wife of the artist Eduard David Einschlag, whose signature is etched in the plate top right, along with the date '03. The etching was published the following year by the Leipzig art revue Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst.

Eduard David Einschlag, Damenbildnis

Etching with aquatint, 1903

Eduard David Einschlag was born in Leipzig in 1879, into a Jewish family. He studied at the fine art Academies of Leipzig, Munich (where he learned etching from Peter Halm), and Berlin, returning to Leipzig to live and work in 1910. Eduard Einschlag is known for his paintings and for his masterly etchings in a post-Impressionist style. In 1938 Eduard and Louise Victoria Einschlag were deported by the Nazis, and both were murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp, sometime around 1942.