Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 11, mentioned p. 30, ill. p. 29. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, “Lasting Impressions: Etchings and Drawings by Carl Bloch”, 2018.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. A 6). Bruun Rasmussen auction 2425, 2024 no. 7507.

During his stay in Rome, the Danish sculptor Lauritz Prior shared a studio with the Finnish sculptor Walter Runeberg (1838–1920), the Norwegian sculptor Brynjulf Bergslien (1830–1890), and the Swedish sculptor Frithiof Kjellberg (1836–1885). In the memoir “Svundne Tider” (1896) by the Norwegian art historian Lorentz Dietrichson (1834–1917), there is a description of a particularly friendly artistic community among the four sculptors. Dietrichson recounts how they would leave the studio after work to, in Dietrichson's words, to indulge “the joy of the evening” at one of the local osterias. Lauritz Prior felt at home in the foreign environment, and his enthusiasm for the Scandinavian community in Rome was later expressed in a letter to his father H. P. Prior: “Everyone was like brothers and sisters to each other, and it did inexpressible good.”