The portrait of Langus’s wife Ana Wiedenhofer, a German living in Ljubljana, was made as the accompaniment to his own self-portrait. Both of the pictures are traditionally ascribed to 1828, the year of their marriage. They had no children of their own, but shortly after Langus’s brother Janez passed in 1838, they adopted his daughters Marija and Henrika. Henrika followed in her uncle’s footsteps, becoming a painter herself.
Depicted from the knee up, the painting shows Ana as a young woman sewing, her face turned towards the user. In contrast to the soft shading of the face, the fabric of her dress and of the shawl draped over her shoulders is painted more rigidly. On the left is a table, upon which is a still life of sewing supplies. Depicting her doing housework reflects the zeitgeist, in which women in urban environments were expected to know how to knit and sew, as well as other handicrafts.
Langus painted a few other Ljubljanese women, though instead of sewing accoutrements we often find them holding an open book.