Exhibited: Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen, 1957, cat. no. 3. Provenance: Family of the artist.

As the sister of the painter Johannes Larsen, Christine Swane is included in a large circle of practising artists from the outset, and finds in her brother a strong supporter of her pursuit of an artistic career. She studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1898–1901, but is taught simultaneously and subsequently by Fritz Syberg, J.F. Willumsen and Harald Giersing. Around 1910, she marries the painter Sigurd Swane. The marriage was dissolved in 1920, but unlike many other women in artist marriages of the time, Swane continues her career and development.

The double painting being offered at the auction shows two very different motifs. The naturalism of the Fynbo painters was Swane’s point of departure in her artistic works, which can be seen in her early flower paintings. The still life with freshly picked lilac coloured fritillaries in two glass jugs, shows a fine ability to observe, a distinct understanding of colour and precision in the renderings of the scene. Later, she develops her own visual language, where her surface-focused style and discreet use of colours gives her artwork a distinctive and quiet expression. As a young artist, she has presumably struggled to afford new canvases at that time. On the other side, therefore, we find a quiet portrait of a woman nursing a newborn. The woman portrayed is probably the sister-in-law of Swane, Johanne, with her son Erik - also called “Tinge”. However, it can also be Alhed with his son Johan. The woman is quietly concentrating on the little one, and mother and son form a strong symbiotic figure in the foreground, kept in muted blue and pink hues that contrast with the earth tones of the background.