Portrait of a Child with a Steiff Lion 1927

Philip Alexius de László painted this portrait of a child with a toy lion, probably in oil, and you can tell there's been a lot of careful layering to get the luminosity and texture right. The subdued palette gives the painting a gentle, dreamy feel; you can see the artist trying to capture not just the child’s likeness, but also a sense of her inner world. Look at the way the brushstrokes around the eyes are so delicate, as if the artist is trying to capture the very moment of thought. I wonder what it was like for de László to work on this; did he have kids himself? Did he make it from life? Was the kid bored? I feel like it is such an exchange of ideas between artists and across time, and it keeps us all creative.