The delicate brushstrokes which make up this shimmering portrait of the artist’s sister, Rachel, demonstrate Klinghoffer’s noted sensitivity and skill as a portraitist. Rachel was one of Klinghoffer’s six sisters, who all modelled for her in their East End home. Born in 1900 in Austria, Klinghoffer came to Britain with her mother, at the age of three. Her talent in drawing took her to the Central School, where Bernard Meninsky is said to have commented, ‘Good Lord, that child draws like da Vinci.’ Jacob Epstein called her ‘a painter of the first order.’ Klinghoffer also attended the Slade for two years, holding her first solo exhibition in 1920. She had five further London exhibitions before the Second World War. Later she moved to Holland with her husband, and in her last years divided her time between New York and London.