Per Krafft’s portrait of an unknown young lady in elegant hat, gracefully reclining on a yellow pillow, shows a clear French influence. It was painted in 1768, the same year that the artist returned to Sweden after twenty-one years abroad. Pastel technique, which had been Krafft’s specialty in his years abroad, had dwindled in popularity. Now the fashion was for oil painting. Portraiture had been the genre with which Krafft had enjoyed the greatest success during his career on the Continent. As a student of Alexander Roslin’s he had been greatly affected by him, but he was also influenced by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. It was several years after returning to Sweden before Krafft began to receive commissions from the court, and in that time he devoted himself to landscape painting as well as portraits. In 1773, Krafft was made a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.
Per Dahlström from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014
