In a French Laundry

In a French Laundry

1889

Oil on canvas

Mått 105,00 x 133,50 cm Ram 123,50 x 151,00 x 9,00 cm

GKM 0286

Purchase, 1896

In a large room, laundresses are at work along long benches. Light filters in from the high windows, and to the right are mounds of clothes. The shabby, noisy environment is shown in the clear light of Realism. There is nothing refined about these women; the hardness of the work is written on their faces. The colours are muted, with greyish-brown patches of glazed colour, but the water in the wooden tub in the foreground shines bright blue. The clarity and harshness of the contrasts gives the painting a barren, inhospitable atmosphere. Realism was an influential current in mid nineteenth-century art, starting with Gustave Courbet above all. It often had a social side, a willingness to depict working-class drudgery as accurately as possible. Realism was important for the artists who in the 1880s eschewed academic convention and sought to depict the surrounding world in their art. Jens Ferdinand Willumsen soon adopted a more Symbolist imagery, however. Kristoffer Arvidsson from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014

Charlottenlund, 20/01/2022 - 01/05/2022 Espoo, Gallen-Kallelan Museo, 07/06/1996 - 01/09/1996, no. 52

Georg Nordensvan, "I Göteborgs Museum. Några intryck af Georg Nordensvan", Ord & Bild, red. Karl Whålin, Ord & Bild/Wahlström & Widstrand, 1906, p. 24, ill. p. 26 Kirk Varnedoe m fl, Northern Light. Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting 1880–1910, The Brooklyn Museum, 1982., ill. p. 16 Carl G. Laurin, Nordisk konst III. Danmarks och Norges konst från 1880 till 1925, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, Stockholm 1925, p. 77-78, ill. p. 81 Axel L. Romdahl, Göteborgs konstmuseum. Tvåhundra bilder med inledande text av Axel L. Romdahl, Medéns bokhandels aktiebolag, Göteborg 1925., ill. p. 211 Kati Kivimäki, Kerttu Karvonen-Kannas, Riitta Konttinen, à Paris! Pohjoismainen taiteilijasiirtokunta Pariisissa 1800-luvun lopussa/Nordiska konstnärer i Paris i slutet av 1800-talet/Norid Artists in Paris in the Late 19th Century, red. Kerttu Karvonen-Kannas, Tuija Möttönen, Gallen-Kallelan Museo, Espoo 1996., no. 52, ill. p. 63 Barbro Ahlfort, Lena Boëthius, Ingmari Desaix, Folke Edwards, Björn Fredlund, Jonas Gavel, Barbro Löfquist, Anne Pettersson, Håkan Wettre, Göteborgs konstmuseum dess historia och samlingar, red. Håkan Wettre, Palmeblad, Göteborg 1992., ill. p. 11 Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Björn Fredlund, Anna Hyltze, Philippa Nanfeldt, Isabella Nilsson, Johan Sjöström, Samlingen Göteborgs konstmuseum, red. Kristoffer Arvidsson, Per Dahlström, Anna Hyltze, Göteborgs konstmuseum, Göteborg 2014., p. 193, ill. p. 192 Sven Sandström, "Willumsen och Sverige", Konstrevy årg. XXXIV häfte 4, 1958., p. 139, ill. p. 139 André Cariouoch Dorthe Vansgaard Nielsen, Gauguin og hans venner, red. Dorthe Vansgaard Nielsen, Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund, 2022., no. 43, p. 142, ill. p. 143 Axel L. Romdahl, "Göteborgs Konstmuseum", Konstrevy, specialnummer om Göteborg, årg. XV, red., 1939., ill. p. 14