Vlaho Bukovac - Girl (Portrait of the Painter's Daughter) oil on canvas, 47.5 x 40.5 cm, signed and dated lower left: Vlaho Bukovac Prague 1916, verso old exhibition label of G. M. Lotinga, Fine Art Galleries, 57 New Bond Street, London W 1, U. K., September 1959 Exhibited: - G. M. Lotinga, Fine Art Galleries, 57 New Bond Street, London W 1, U. K., September 1959 Publicated: - S.V.U. Manes 2019, page 166 Consulted with Dr Irena Zantovska Murray HonFRIBA, Professor Jaromir Zemina, Dr Jiri Machalicky and Vladimir Lekes. Confirmation of authenticity enclosed. The famous Croatian painter Vlaho Bukovac, born in Cavtat, was a renowned artist of the late Impressionist, Symbolist and Art Nouveau periods. He had a special relationship with Prague and many Czech artists - especially Jan Dedina, who organized a posthumous exhibition of Bukovac in Prague in June 1925. Of the 178 oil paintings exhibited, many of the works entered private collections in Prague. After a rough start in America, Bukovac came to the Paris Academy in 1877 to join Alexandre Cabanel and soon met the Czech artists Vaclav Brozik and Vojtech Hynais, with whom he became permanent friends. Thematically, he focused at first on allegorical works with large figural compositions in an arcadian, elevated landscape, focusing on the history and the present of the Balkan countries. He soon won renown in the Paris Salon, the world's most important artistic platform for determining success or failure. Gradually he began to mix his own colours and in his mature years arrived at highly distinctive and original valences of purple, orange and red. By reinforcing pointillist brush techniques and unexpected color harmonies, he became one of the leading artists whose works were highly regarded around 1900. In 1903, Bukovac came to Prague, where he was given a one-year contract, subsequently extended over a long period. Bukovac liked to read, loved the stars and enjoyed sitting on the balcony of his apartment in Ovenecka Street in Letna, from where he observed the celestial harmonies. Between 1903 and 1909 he particularly refined his technique and expression to masterly perfection. The musicality of his lyrical works suggests positive receptions, for example, of the music of Gounod or Massenet, whose work with sound has numerous parallels with the tuning of Bukovac's art. The The Girl (Portrait of the Painter's Daughter) is an intimate, yet magnificent painting, which embodies all the cited virtues of Bukovac's painting mastery, especially the colouristic opulence and harmonious, intimate expression.