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PROPERTY OF CODAN INSURANCE VILHELM HAMMERSHØI DANISH, 1864-1916 KVINDE I INTERIØR (A WOMAN IN AN INTERIOR)

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Winkel & Magnussen, Copenhagen (1918)
Sale: Bukowski's, Stockholm, 26-28 March 1969, lot 164
Sale: Christie's, London, 29 March 1990, lot 83
Purchased at the above sale by the present owners
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

S. Michaëlis & A. Bramsen, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Copenhagen, 1918, no. 358
CATALOGUE NOTE

Painted in 1913, this work epitomises Hammershøi's interiors, in which he distilled the painting of women, often his wife Ida, in empty rooms to its very essence. The painting illustrates his remarkable ability to capture a sense of timelessness and introspective solitude, his observation of the rarefied light against the geometric forms and sharp angles of the apartment adding to the powerful effect.

A Woman in an Interior depicts two connecting rooms in Hammershøi's apartment at Strandgade 25, where he lived from 1913 until his death. Like Strandgade 30 before it, where he had lived for 10 years, the architectural details of number 25 offered him an inexhaustible supply of motifs during his time there.

The most important element in both apartments was the even light that pervaded the spaces. In his interior landscapes, 'light is the principal subject... and that light is the meagre Danish winter light, the light of grey weather quite without colour, warmth, or gaiety, albeit so rich in nuance... There is a light that pours in over the canvas and defines the space... The light is usually indirect for, of course, Hammershøi also knows that indirect light is often the most beautiful...' (Hanne Finsen and Inge Vibeke Raaschou-Nielsen, Vilhelm Hammershøi, En Retrospektiv udstilling, Copenhagen, 1981, p. 16).

The sense of seclusion and introspection in Hammershøi's paintings is central to Symbolism, of which Hammershøi was regarded a leading exponent. In his observation of light and space he was influenced by James McNeill Whistler, whose work he first saw when exhibiting two of his own paintings at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. A Woman in an Interior resonates with the same silvery-grey palette found both in Whistler's interiors, notably Portrait of the Artist's Mother, and in his nocturnes.