In 1904, Saxon artist Oskar Zwintscher painted the portrait of a lady smoking a cigarette. Today, the work has cult status at the Albertinum in Dresden. Her hair loose, a burning cigarette held casually in her hand, the sitter in a black reform dress is sitting in front of a black curtain. But who is behind the young woman who looks out of the picture so confidently?

Andreas Dehmer and Susanna Partsch embark on a fascinating search for clues to the identity of the lady smoking. They find emancipated women who earned their living as artists, actors or writers, preferred reform dress to the corset, and regarded smoking as a symbol of independence. They follow them to metropolises like Berlin, Dresden or Munich, where they lived as part of the bohemian scene. A captivating picture of the way art and life intertwined around 1900 emerges in this search for the unknown.

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Andreas Dehmer, Dresden State Art Collections; Susanna Partsch, art historian and non-fiction author, Munich