The Quiet Presence of the Portraitist In the small, focused world of nineteenth-century German portraiture, Marie Großmann occupied a space defined by the faces of others. Her life, marked by the years 1853 to 1890, was spent capturing the likenesses of those within her immediate circle. She did not seek the broad strokes of grand movements, but instead turned her attention to the specific, steady gaze of the individuals who shared her time and her name. Her brushwork found its purpose in the study of character through likeness. In 1874, she produced a series of works that captured the Krebs…