Måns (“Måsse”) Schjerfbeck (1897–1971) was the artist’s nephew, the son of the architect Magnus Schjerfbeck. By profession a schoolteacher in Helsinki, he was remembered as a quiet, withdrawn figure and appears in Schjerfbeck’s work on several occasions (two portraits are currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Here, with a few assured graphite lines and a deliberately reduced facial description, Schjerfbeck captures him seated at home, absorbed in reading a newspaper. The economy of means—structuring contours, shorthand modelling, and an emphasis on pose and presence over likeness—typifies her late draughtsmanship, where character is conveyed through rhythm, weight, and silence.

Schjerfbeck also portrayed Måns in one of her best-known images, commonly subtitled The Motorist — a modern persona conjured with a distinctly literary edge. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, she recast her sitter as a contemporary dandy, turning the motorcar into a symbol of modernity rather than biography (Måns neither owned a car nor held a driving licence), an example of Schjerfbeck’s ability to invent a forward-looking world within the intimate sphere of family.