The subject of Forlatt (Abandoned) portrays the girl from the fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Exhausted and disheartened, she has paused in her quest to find her lost and enchanted lover. Delicate and idealized depictions of women were seen as a natural choice of subject matter for female artists, and Tønnesen was encouraged by her teachers to focus on such themes. However, this significant work from her time in Berlin also demonstrates her mastery of the classical principles of figure representation. The figure is posed in contrapposto, where the shift in weight across different parts of the body creates a harmonious asymmetry.