If you look carefully, you can see the reflection of the artist in the amber pendant worn by this young woman. Chris Lebeau (1878-1945) needed no fewer than 120 posing sessions to paint Sixta Heddema. This was partly due to his precise and very realistic working method, since Lebeau worked with the oils used by the old masters, and each paint layer needed at least a week to dry. He painted this portrait in 1936, when he was at a turning point in his artistic development: in this period, he exchanged Art Deco for Realism. In his portraits he creates a certain distance to the model. However, this is certainly not the case with this portrait, since Heddema was not only his model but also his student for many years.

Chris Lebeau, Portret van Sixta Heddema (Portrait of Sixta Heddema), 1936