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The artist never accepted commissions to paint portraits; all the portraits he painted featured members of his family. These representations, each of which is a pearl of intimate Realism, reach the soul of the model. Szinyei began to paint portraits of this wife on several occasions, but he was not always able to finish them, because his wife, in sharp contrast with Szinyei's contemplating character, was ever so busy that she had difficulty tolerating the modelling sessions. She set both for the famous "Woman in Lilac Dress" (1874) and for the "Portrait in Shawl". The latter portrait was not finished in 1880: the deep scarlet coloured velvet dress his wife is shown wearing was completed only around 1890, long after the couple's divorce in 1887. (In actual fact Szinyei's daughter was sitting as model.) The painting is dominated by the delicate and sensitive beauty of the model's face, radiating from the background of warm colours. In Szinye's pictures, the women are often shown wearing in their hair or on their hats colourful flowers, or as in the case of "Portrait in Shawl", laces and ribbons. We can almost be certain that he did not use them just to conform with the fashion of the age. These colourful patches were necessary to emphasize the beauty of the face and the fine rosiness of the skin, as well as to produce a definite separation from the dark background.
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