A portrait of Lehmbruck’s wife, this is one of many bronze casts made from the models inherited by the artist’s family after his suicide. Bust of a Woman is based on a fragment of Standing Woman, Lehmbruck’s first successful composition after his arrival in Paris and one that signaled the artist’s liberation from the style of Auguste Rodin, the dominant sculptor of the time. Younger artists like Lehmbruck found Rodin’s figures overwrought in pose and expression.