VILHELM HAMMERSHØI
(Copenhagen 1864 – 1916 Copenhagen)
A plowed field near Copenhagen, 1880’s
Oil on canvas, 13.5 × 24 cm
Provenance:
The artist’s mother, Copenhagen; by descent to Svend and Anna Hammershøi, the artist’s siblings, Copenhagen;
Dr. Alfred Bramsen (1851-1932), Copenhagen; By descent to his daughter Karen Bramsen (1877-1970), Copenhagen;
Harald Olsen, curator of the National Gallery of Denmark from 1949-83, Copenhagen;
sold by Olsen’s descendants at Bruun Rasmussen Auctions, Copenhagen, 1.12.2020, lot 46.
(SOLD)
This small landscape by Denmark’s nowadays most celebrated modern artist connects the traditional landscape of the Danish Golden Age in the nineteenth century with the rise of modern art in Denmark. Vilhelm Hammershøi painted landscapes throughout his career. Still in his teens he was educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen 1879-1884 and at Peder Severin Kroyer’s art school Kunstneres Frie Studieskoler where he enrolled in 1883. The art school provided students with an alternative educational program based on contemporary innovation and an increasing interest in modern art. During this first decade of his career Hammershøi developed his personal style and it was then that he painted A plowed field near Copenhagen. Therefore it contains elements derived from his academic eduction and elements that show Hammershøi’s talent and appetite for innovation.
Oil-studies painted in the open air played an important role within an artist’s work process in the nineteenth century. They facilitated an immediate approach to capturing nature’s immediate beauty. The pinholes in the current work, visible at the corners of the canvas, support the assumption that Hammershøi painted it on site, en plein air. His Romantic predecessors had had the desire to discover far-away landscapes. Hammershøi, on the contrary, did not travel far from Copenhagen to paint his passages of nature. Instead of remote places he was interested in populated sites or areas frequently visited by people. He painted those sites desolated and abandoned by humanity. The plowed field is a mark of the existence of man in the landscape. Hammershøi was not interested in a romanticized, realistic or idealized depiction of his motives. The spacial and spiritual contextialisation of his subjects was his main concern, resulting in the characteristic atmospheric effect of his works.
In A plowed field near Copenhagen Hammershøi has abandoned the contour line of his academic training, devising his own kind of draftsmanship. He applied typical loose brushstrokes, best visible in the sky at the upper left corner of the composition.This technique enabled him to apply very fine, partly translucent and uneven layers of paint. By means of avoiding contour lines and his specific use of color he abstracted and simplified his subject. He also benefited from the color of the underlying support, partly visible through the paint in places. The impossibly accurate description of subjects using the barest of means. His working method is reminiscent of George Seurat’s technique applied at his black chalk drawings from the same period. The foliage of the two trees on the right indicate that it is an early work as they are not as abstracted as the trees in his later landscapes.
The present oil sketch is not signed and was kept in the artist’s private possession as was often the case with innovative works that artists considered part of their work process. This work has a remarkable provenance. It was owned by the most important figures in Hammershøi’s life and the absolute elite of the art historians in Denmark. Most likely Hammershøi gave it to his mother. Thereafter the work came in the possession of his siblings Svend and Anna Hammershøi. Probably, they presented the painting to dentist Dr. Alfred Bramsen who had been Hammershøi’s most loyal patron. The work was then inherited by Bramsen’s daughter Karen, who was married to Gustav Falck (1874–1955), the director of the National Gallery of Denmark between 1925-30. His colleague Harald Olsen, curator at the same museum from 1949-83, was the next owner of the painting. His descendants decided to sell it recently.
I would like to thank Jesper Svenningsen, Post Doc at the National Gallery of Denmark, for his help with researching the provenance.