Frau am kleinen Tisch is an intensely colorful interior scene from the height of Emil Nolde’s involvement with Die Brücke. The strong tones, bold brushstrokes and the magnificent texture of the surface of the present work undoubtedly demonstrate a reference to the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. Nolde had been exposed to the Dutch artist on several occasions and by 1904 there was a marked change in his works that reflect the influence of van Gogh’s distinct style. The post-Impressionist paintings of van Gogh, and in particular those of Paul Gauguin which were exhibited in Weimar in 1905, opened the expressive possibilities of color to Nolde. He quickly grasped the ways in which a heightened color palette and emphatic brushwork could intensify a composition and began to utilize color as the significant means of expression in his works.

It is this expressive quality, using thick impasto to build an almost relief-like surface of paint, that marked Nolde out to his younger Brücke contemporaries such as Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff, as a truly innovative artist. In 1906, the same year he painted Frau am kleinen Tisch, Nolde was invited to joined the Brücke group. The enthusiasm with which younger artists received his works is shown in the way they soon incorporated elements of his exuberant style—the dense richness of his palette and his idiosyncratic approach to painting—into their own work. It is works such as Frau am kleinen Tisch that gained Nolde a reputation as one of the pioneers of German Expressionism.