Eva Bonnier painted the family’s housekeeper, Brita Maria Banck, or Mussa as she was known, in her everyday environment, with a newspaper spread out on the table. Her strong, focused gaze makes a firm, but at the same time calm and secure impression. Bonnier, one of the leading portrait painters of her time, wrote: “I feel it is most natural to portray her as a newspaper reader, as that is what she spends most of her time doing.”