Theodor Albert Sprengel

Theodor Albert Sprengler was a 19th-century Baltic German painter who worked mainly as a drawing teacher in Tallinn. This Hiiu neiu (Girl from Hiiumaa) is an encyclopaedic painting: its aim is to capture, with documentary accuracy, a maiden in a folk costume that was interesting to a Baltic German and seemed foreign, perhaps even exotic. Sprengler has left out the psychological portrayal of the model, but her tense face betrays a certain discomfort or even defiance of posing. Sprengler has painted the nuances of folk costumes with particular care and detail, so that it can be seen as a rare insight into the ethnography of 19th century Hiiumaa. Of particular note is the positioning of the model against a backdrop of blue skies and expansive seascape, with a small sailboat sailing on the sea. These enliven the encyclopaedic nature of the painting, but obviously want to add a distinctly Hiiumaa character, so that the painting is not just a portrait of a maiden, but of the whole island.