Strandgade, Sunshine

Vilhelm Hammershøi (Danish, 1864–1916)

c. 1906

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Unframed: 50.5 x 56.2 cm (19 7/8 x 22 1/8 in.)
Culture
Denmark
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

One of Denmark’s most celebrated artists, Vilhelm Hammershøi was a painter of quiet spaces, mystery, and silence. Among his most memorable works are paintings of his apartment at 30 Strandgade in Copenhagen, here seen with the sun shining through a window, illuminating the floor and door to the right, while a woman stands in the shadows. The nearly empty room, muted tones, and closed door next to a window evoke a haunting mood filled with psychological complexity.