It is unclear as to whether this photograph is an actual portrait or an image staged to illustrate a romantic short story in a newspaper or magazine. Either way, Kretschmer creates a powerful vision of the modern woman, with her fashionable clothing, stylish haircut and assertive gaze. We might read the portrait as a trace of the contradictions of Weimar culture itself, seen in the modernist furniture and the primitivist motif – with its imperialist resonances – on the tapestry behind. The cramped picture space creates an atmosphere of both challenge and ambivalence. As Kretschmer seems to suggest, this is what it means to be modern.