In 1924, Munch was approached by Birgit Prestøe at Ekely, and painted her in Seated Model on the Couch (G. Woll, op. cit., no. 1500), now in the Munch-Museet. This is believed to be the first work in which Munch painted Birgit, who would become his most frequently used model until 1931, and whom he painted in a variety of settings, both clothed and in the nude. The present work is one of only two paintings featuring Birgit which remains in private hands. Other portraits of Birgit reside in the permanent collections of world-renowned institutions such as the Munch-Museet in Oslo and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C.

Munch himself considered the 1920s as some of the most productive years of his career. His emphasis during this period was on interior scenes with a narrative that embraced a new sense of abstraction and liberated color. This focus however did not signify a departure from his earlier obsession with tormented, angst-ridden individuals. Instead, the emotional and mental instability of his earlier years gave the artist the insight to produce such expressive compositions as the present work, in which he reached a certain level of abstraction, expressing the joys and anxieties of the human condition through the pictorial elements of color and form.

The present work has exceptional early provenance. The first private owner of Ung kvinne på verandaen was Thomas Olsen, scion of the great ship-owning dynasty and arguably Munch’s most important patron. Olsen and the artist were neighbors at Hvitsten in Norway, where the young businessman's role grew from friend to patron and eventually to protector of Munch's works. In 1933, Hitler commissioned the German Art report and Munch was one of 112 artists whose work fell into the category of Entartete Kunst (degenerate art). Over 16,000 works were confiscated from public collections in Germany, 82 of them by Munch.

The present work was deaccessioned as degenerate art in 1937 from the Neue Pinakothek, Munich. Desperate to save his pictures, Munch consulted Thomas Olsen whose role as patron and neighbor in Hvitsten was now extended to help in financing the homecoming of many of the deaccessioned pictures. Thomas Olsen purchased the present work at auction from Harald Holst Halvorsens Kunsthandel in 1939 thus safeguarding its place in history. Soon after Thomas purchased the present work at auction, Norway was invaded by the Axis powers in April 1940. Olsen rapidly transported his Munch paintings to safety at Sandbu, the family mountain farm, near the village of Vaagaa. Among these paintings were Munch’s iconic masterpiece The Scream which made history at Sotheby’s in May 2012 when it sold for $119,922,500 marking a new world record for any work of art at auction.