© Adèle Reifenberg estate

The sitter in the portrait is the artist’s sister-in-law, Gabriele Tergit, the pen name of Dr Elise Reifenberg (1894–1982), a pioneering female court reporter in Berlin, who achieved overnight fame for her socially critical novel about the late Weimar Republic, 'Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm' (1931). After migration, she became secretary of the London PEN-Center of German-language Authors Abroad. Tergit was married to the architect Heinz Reifenberg, who designed Belsize Square Synagogue.