Exhibited: In 1909, Peter Ilsted exhibited three works at Charlottenborg, all with the title “Interior”. In 1910, two with the title “Interior” as well as “Sunshine in the old living room” and “Sunshine interior”. All titles could correspond to the present painting. Connaught Brown, “Northern Spirit II”, London, 1987.

Peter Ilsted and Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916) met at the Academy in the late 1870s and became close friends. In 1891, Hammershøi married Ilsted's sister Ida Ilsted (1869–1949) and the close ties between the two artists were thus further strengthened. In artistic terms, Ilsted was strongly influenced by Hammershøi's interior art.

With great thoroughness, Ilsted painted a long series of depictions of the quiet living rooms, in which the atmosphere is mainly created by the play of light on the furniture and wall surfaces of the interior. Occasionally a woman or little girl is seen in the room, who is usually the artist's wife or one of his daughters, as in the present painting.

Weilbach, “Dansk kunstnerleksikon”, 1995 p. 478 writes the following about Ilsted's paintings (in Danish): "The realistic rendering of the interiors is characterized by a cultured bourgeois taste. The description of the play of light over the walls and mahogany furniture is undramatic, but sincere and reflective. As with Hammershøi and the more distant Dutch role models from the 17th century, the isolated female figure often appears as a character- and mood-creating element and not infrequently provides a psychological point”. This could be a description of the present painting.

Provenance: Bruun Rasmussen auction 486, 1986 no. 93, ill. p. 59. Acquired by the present owner at Connaught Brown, London, October 1987.