Studies for the Series of Lithographs The Bound Columbus

• The Face of Woman
• Lithograph on paper
• Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980)
• 1913
• Leopold Museum, Vienna

The series The Bound Columbus is a fictional story starring Christopher Columbus as a man who obsessively follows his lover to his own destruction. The lover stands in for Alma, Gustav Mahler(1860−1911)’s widow. Kokoschka fell in love with her and made many paintings with her as his muse. The Couple in Candlelight depicts a night when Kokoschka tried to chase off mist seeping through the window by lighting a candle. The moment is delicately laid out to show the emotional confusion and conflict that Kokoschka felt by this complicated relationship.