Head of a Young Girl Looking Upwards, study for the painting Christ Child with Angels

After 1820 Tkadlík’s works started to be dominated by religious themes of a contemplative nature, motifs of prayer, Christian virtue, and salvation. The first painting of this type was his Christ Child with Angels, apparently started when the artist was still living in Prague, but whose final painted version is dated in Vienna in 1820. The simple composition and the central figure of the small Saviour looking up to heaven reflect an inner turning of the soul towards God, a scene that essentially does not tell a story, but is that much more filled with emotional experience.