The young woman called 'Ninetta'

Eugene de Blaas was a Venetian-born Austrian academic painter whose subjects were primarily drawn from Venetian popular life — fisher girls, working women, and the picturesque characters of the Venetian waterfront. 'Ninetta' (1887) belongs to his series of portraits and character studies of Venetian women, typically depicted with the freshness and individual charm that distinguished his work from more generically academic treatment. De Blaas worked between Vienna and Venice, and his Venetian subjects were enormously popular with international collectors who found in them an appealing combination of picturesque local color and accomplished technique.

De Blaas renders his Venetian woman subject with the polished academic technique he developed through formal training — the figure carefully observed and rendered with confident modeling. His approach to the female subject balances individual character with the decorative appeal that made his work commercially successful. The light quality he associated with Venice — warm, Mediterranean — gives his female subjects their characteristic freshness.