Peter Ilsted

Sale: Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 7-8 December 1914, lot 91
Sale: Christie's, London, 8 September 2016, lot 11

The village of Troense, on the island of Tåsinge was a popular tourist destination in Denmark at the end of the 19th century. The vivid brushstroke, play of light and shadow and textural expression is characteristic of Ilsteds’ earlier paintings. He was trained as an artist at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen and followed the Danish tradition for which he gained considerable attention. In 1889, the year he painted A Conversation in Troense, Ilsted exhibited works at the Salon in Paris and received an honourable mention, followed by a medal the year after. Ilsted started painting scenes of women in interiors, certainly under the influence of his brother-in-law Hammershøi, and their close friend Carl Holsøe (lot 1). Ilsted’s work was greatly appraised and he regularly exhibited in Denmark and abroad during his lifetime, and works are now in museums such as the ARos Museum in Aarhus, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, Rijksmuseum, Musée d’Orsay and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.