This portrait of a woman with a feather boa has a translucent effect. The brushwork is turbulent, with the paint thickly loaded in places. The applications of different shades in the background, on the dress and on the head, with a light purplish shadow on the neck and the orange-red shading of the hair, create a shimmering, fleeting effect. Kobilca placed many of the subjects of her portraits in profile; the woman’s gaze turned towards the letter gives us the impression that we are observing an intimate scene.

Kobilca’s return to Ljubljana from Paris in 1893 concluded an intensive six-year period in which she created more than 50 studies and paintings and progressed from the studio-based realism embodied by Woman Drinking Coffee (1888) to the naturalism of Summer and Under a Pergola and the symbolism of The Fortune-Teller (1893). In terms of its stylistic innovations, Parisienne with a Letter borders on Impressionism, although Kobilca was never so consciously aware of the style as to develop it systematically.