Alma Mahler (1879–1964) was the wife of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Blessed with beauty and artistic talent, Alma had a love affair with the painter Oskar Kokoschka, seven years her junior, from about 1912. After Gustav’s death, Alma remarried the architect and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, but based on the fact that Kokoschka continued to walk around with a life-sized doll of Alma, it seems to have taken him a while to get over their breakup. In this work, Alma appears both beautiful and terrifying. The composition was apparently inspired by Mona Lisa.