BERTHOLD WOLTZE - THE IRRITATING GENTLEMAN, 1874
The painting depicts a girl in mourning attire with a tearful face gazing at us with a resigned expression. The young girl, possibly in her teenage years, is dressed modestly in a middle-class style.
A persistent wealthy man is leaning over the wooden partition behind his seat to try to talk to the visibly uninterested young girl. Dressed in a flawless suit paired with a bow tie, adorned with glasses and a stylish hat, he leans in with an almost suggestive grin while holding a cigarette. The elderly companion he is meant to share his space with looks away, perhaps feeling uncomfortable about the man's clearly unsuitable attempt.
The young woman immediately grabs our attention, as she highlights that there is nothing amusing about this situation, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Her dignified expression conceals her suffering caused by the irritating gentleman's disrespect, showing the full seriousness of the situation. The young woman only shows her sadness through her face and nowhere else on her body. One could argue that Berthold Woltze's painting possesses a significant moralistic significance.
The Irritating Gentleman (Der lästige Kavalier in his native German) is the most famous painting by Berthold Woltze, a German genre painter and professor. This is his most notable work, which is what the general public mainly recognizes him for. It showcases the beauty of narrative genre painting through everyday scenes captured in a single snapshot.