Already seriously ill, but even more absorbed in his work than before, Klee made a new reputation for himself in Switzerland during the last few years of his life. He enjoyed walking through the country villages and forests, watching the farmers work.

His work gradually developed into his last and final phase, about which Grohmann writes: "In 1937 Klee had already adopted the technical process that suited his artistic impulse of those years. His desire for directness, which was the outcome of a last detour around the tangible aspects of the natural and spirited world, led him to use very simple shapes ... Klee now returns to gouache which he had already used before on occasions. He employs it as a thick impasto or thinned out, and likes to combine it with oil, tempera and watercolour, so that it is not easy to see just how the surfaces obtained in this way were produced ..." (W. Grohmann, Paul Klee, London, 1954.)

This picture is recorded in the Artist's Werkverzeichnis as follows:
1937, 39 (K19)
mehrfarbig. Blatt
Kostümiertes Bauernkind
Olfarben
grauer Kleistergrd auf Pap.

Sold with a photo-certificate from Josef Helfenstein and Stefan Frey of the Paul Klee Stiftung dated Berne, 12 October 1993