Portrait of Ida, the Artist's Wife
Vilhelm Hammershøi (Danish, 1864–1916)
1898
- Medium
- Pencil
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- height 242 mm, width 188 mm
- Culture
- Danish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
Vilhelm Hammershøi and his wife lived in various European cities with irregular intervals. The settlement in London For example, they lived in London from the end of October 1897 to the end of May 1898. Unlike Rome and Paris, London was not a capital of the arts at the time, and this naturally occasioned some surprise and speculation as to what made a Danish artist want to go there. James Abbott McNeil Whistler One of the reasons was, undoubtedly, the US-born painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). In London Hammershøi took a step that was quite out of character. He wrote to Whistler and tried to meet him in person, but did not succeed. The main reason for this direct approach was that Hammershøi hoped for Whistler’s intervention to secure his representation at The International Society’s inaugural exhibition in 1898. Here, he wished to present Two Figures, a picture of himself and his wife, Ida, based on several studies such as this piece. A rendition of veiled presence The artist did not intend his picture to contain "portraits in the strictest sense of the word", and indeed this drawing is something other and more than a good likeness: a rendition of…
