Men listening at a concert

This drawing corresponds to the left part of one of Krøyer’s best-known paintings, now at the Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (inv. NG.M.00325; see K. Halkier in Krøyer. An International Perspective, exhib. cat., Copenhagen, Den Hirschsprungske Samling, and Skagen, Skagens Museum, 2011-2012, no. 76, ill.). Dated 1886, it represents a concert given by the Neruda String Quartet, of which the members take up most of the painting at right. More than just an evocation of a musical evening in the artist’s Copenhagen studio, it can be considered a group portrait of the Danish cultural world and the artist’s circle of friends. A preparatory oil sketch with many differences is also at the Nasjonalmuseet (inv. NMK.2008.0628). Dated a year later, the drawing, on the other hand, must have made as a ricordo, and was given by the artist to Louis Gonse, editor-in-chief of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, perhaps on the occasion of the painting’s inclusion in the Paris Salon of 1887.