In the portrait “Girl by Vase of Flowering Twigs”, the painter and printmaker Otto Herbig depicts his second wife Elsbeth Herbig-Mueller. Herbig’s close family circle inspired many of his works. Here the flowering twigs bend over the dreamy young woman that she always remained in his work. In this diagonal composition, the fine detail of the blossom contrasts with the flat patches that make up the figure and back-ground. Before Elsbeth married Herbig she had been the wife of Otto Mueller, once a member of the Brücke group. In the late 1920s Herbig had exhibited with Mueller and other former Brücke artists in Berlin.