Vilhelm Hammershøi

Family of the artist (by 1918)
Valdemar Kleis, Copenhagen
Purchased by the father of the present owner by 1960, possibly from the above

Alfred Bramsen & Sophus Michaëlis, Vilhelm Hammershøi: Kunstneren og hans værk, Copenhagen, 1918, no. 345, catalogued

The canvas has not been lined. There are no signs of retouching visible under ultraviolet light. This painting is in very good original condition, and ready to hang. Held in a simple gilt frame with a nameplate.
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'Why do I use just a few, muted colours?  Perhaps they can best be called neutral and reduced colours. I'm utterly convinced that a painting has the best effect in terms of its colour the fewer colours there are.'
Vilhelm Hammershøi

Painted in 1911, this painting shows the interior of Villa Spurveskjul (Sparrow Villa) in Frederiksdal, where Vilhelm and his wife Ida spent the summer of that year. It relates to Hammershøi's seminal self portrait painted that same summer (fig.1), whose backdrop is made up of the same view. Spurveskjul was designed by the painter Nicolai Abildgaard and built in 1805-6. Hammershøi liked the architecture and so took out a lease on the house, which for the summer months of 1911 served as his studio. The couple even contemplated buying the property, but in the end its state of disrepair prevented them from going through with the purchase.

In the present work Hammershoi creates a hermetically sealed, light infused world of calm and stillness, the sense of silence and solitude expressed by the restricted palette of greys and whites. Despite the presence of the window, the painting departs from the tradition of the 'window picture' popular in the first half of the nineteenth century because it does not articulate the relationship between interior and exterior, nearness and farness. Indeed the window panes are so opaque that the world outside cannot be deciphered at all. While most window paintings contain far-reaching exterior views, Hammershøoi uses the murky panes and sufffused light to focus attention on the interior.