Lacemaker, alternatively titled Portrait of Štefka Batič, is a characteristic work by the expressionist painter Veno Pilon, done between 1922 and 1928, in the years the artist spent in his hometown of Ajdovščina, which was part of the region under Italian rule at the time, following the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo. Pilon had been profoundly affected by World War I; having served as a soldier for Austria-Hungary, he saw the end of the war in Russian captivity. After the war, he studied in Prague, Florence, and Vienna.

Upon his return to Ajdovščina, the artist dedicated himself to painting still lifes and landscapes as well as portraits of his family, friends, and acquaintances, including that of his friend Štefka Batič. She is depicted holding a narrow piece of lace, an attribute of her profession, although despite the title of the painting, she was not a lacemaker, but sold sewing supplies and accessories.

The woman is depicted in a dark, almost confined interior that seems to encroach on her with its somber colors, giving the impression of her dark clothes and hair virtually fusing with the background. The only things that stand out from the gloom are her light face, neck, and hands, with the most distinctly expressionist features being her large, vacant eyes and the elegantly extended fingers. The expressionistically deformed eyes probably convey the gravity of the traumatic postwar period, while the hands are almost an independent portrait study, as in other Pilon’s portraits. For example, they are completely different in form in the painting next to this, i.e., Pilon’s portrait of his sister Milka, and also in the picture of the composer Marij Kogoj, hanging in the next room.

In 1926, Pilon traveled to Paris for the first time, a trip which noticeably impacted his oeuvre. Among other things, he became more actively involved in photography, and started using a lighter palette in his painting under the influence of French art, as is evident in On the Bank of the Seine (1926).