Schjerfbeck’s focus was always on the human figure, which she used to mirror the modern interplay with timelessness and artistic reflection. Her reduced paintings have a complexity that is inherent to both the treatment of the surface and to the subject. In 1888, Schjerfbeck was searching for a new expression of a more subjective art, and in the following years, her expression underwent a quite extraordinary change. From being an academical painter in the naturalist style she progressed toward a subdued, translucent approach with reduced colours. The first time she reworked the theme was in the late 1890s for the cover picture of a publication on tuberculosis. Nearly forty years later, 1927, Schjerfbeck returned to the composition when she carried out a second oil version in a more pared-down, abstracted style, in which the figure and twig she holds are observed closer. This work became the basis for a charcoal and watercolour drawing, also dated 1927, occasionally called The Convalescent II. Nearly a decade later, at her art dealer and patron Gösta Stenman’s behest, she revisited the composition again: in the form of the present work, executed in 1938, as well as a chalk drawing of the same year, which served as the prototype for a series of lithographs made shortly afterwards. In 1945, a final watercolour version followed and in addition, Schjerfbeck used the composition for an ex libris bookplate she designed for Stenman.