.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This enchanting portrait inspired the Danish poet Sophus Michaëlis to write a poetic response to the painting. This was featured in the early definitive guide to Hammershøi’s work - Alfred Bramsen & Sophus Michaëlis, Vilhelm Hammershøi: Kunstneren og hans værk, Copenhagen, 1908.
In this poem the portrait appears to encapsulate those same themes of stillness and enigma that many see in Hammershøi’s empty interiors. The sitter, Else, is described as simultaneously ‘spring young and old’, and as the ultimate symbol of unanswered questions: a Sybille.
This portrait, executed in 1913, is the last of a total of six commissioned portraits that Hammershøi executed. The sitter is the daughter of department head V. Aagesen. Else had previously sat for a small profile pencil sketch drawn by Harald Giersing in 1899. She was aged 20 when she sat for this three-quarter length portrait by Hammershøi.
Susanne Meyer-Abich identifies two preliminary head study sketches for the present work (S.M-A. 358, 359, both identified under Bramsen as one work, no. 362).
Progressions can be seen between two smaller contemporaneous head studies which show the consideration which Hammershøi invested in capturing Else’s expression.
In relation to a smaller head-study, Lena Boëthius observes that the present, more elaborate finished portrait, “shows the model sitting on a chair with one arm resting on the armrest and the other on her lap. There she wears a white sash with a bow, an unusual decorative feature in Hammershoi's otherwise conservative art”. (L. Boëthius, in exh. cat. Vilhelm Hammershøi, Göteborgs konstmuseum & Stockholm Nationalmuseum, 1999, p. 144).
In this poem the portrait appears to encapsulate those same themes of stillness and enigma that many see in Hammershøi’s empty interiors. The sitter, Else, is described as simultaneously ‘spring young and old’, and as the ultimate symbol of unanswered questions: a Sybille.
This portrait, executed in 1913, is the last of a total of six commissioned portraits that Hammershøi executed. The sitter is the daughter of department head V. Aagesen. Else had previously sat for a small profile pencil sketch drawn by Harald Giersing in 1899. She was aged 20 when she sat for this three-quarter length portrait by Hammershøi.
Susanne Meyer-Abich identifies two preliminary head study sketches for the present work (S.M-A. 358, 359, both identified under Bramsen as one work, no. 362).
Progressions can be seen between two smaller contemporaneous head studies which show the consideration which Hammershøi invested in capturing Else’s expression.
In relation to a smaller head-study, Lena Boëthius observes that the present, more elaborate finished portrait, “shows the model sitting on a chair with one arm resting on the armrest and the other on her lap. There she wears a white sash with a bow, an unusual decorative feature in Hammershoi's otherwise conservative art”. (L. Boëthius, in exh. cat. Vilhelm Hammershøi, Göteborgs konstmuseum & Stockholm Nationalmuseum, 1999, p. 144).