Eesti kunsti oksjonid

Mezzotint on paper. 1942.
Signature: Monika – mezzotinto 1942 / Eduard Wiiralt

One of Eduard Wiiralt’s (1898-1954) best-known mezzotint works depicts a little girl, Monika Pootsik. The artist experimented with the same motif for a long time with small variations, and as one of the options, created a version where the portrait in the background wears the same hat as the girl sitting in the foreground. The portrait of the girl is also on the brooch on the latter’s sweater, and thus all three portraits seem to reflect the girl’s development from a child into a serious young woman.

“Monika” was already praised in the year of its completion, which is also mentioned in the 2013 “History of Estonian Art”, volume 6, part 1: “At the 1942 autumn exhibition at the Tallinn Art Hall, Eduard Wiiralt’s portraits of Estonian subjects stood out as significant works: two works titled “Estonian girl” (one in colour aquatint, the other in soft varnish) and the mezzotint “Monika” (at the exhibition it was also called “Girl with flowers”). The latter, a compositionally unique work with a triple portrait repetition, which is technically the pinnacle of E. Wiiralt’s mezzotint approach, later began to be appreciated more and more, and “Monika” was also successful in post-war France.”

Text: Katre Palm