“The hand raised to the head in the process of fixing the hair had previously captivated Hammershøi as a plastic motif.” […] “Only now has he felt equipped to take it up as a central motif in a large format – adding a new dimension to both his portrayal of women and his painterly universe in the process. Instead of a static figure and the distance-creating, frontally perceived, plane-parallel space, here we have a figure displaced depth-wise, performing two movements at once and expanding the plane with her energy. Hammershøi had never painted like this before. The sensuality and intimacy in his portrayal of women, which in the early pictures was associated with almost total immobility – both because the woman was motionless and because she was bound visually to the plane-parallel layout – has here a far more direct, less abstract character. Indeed, in the subject herself – the not yet fully dressed woman setting her hair – there is a new intimacy to Hammershøi’s art. It is as if Hammershøi, who had painted Ida’s neck between the neckline of the dress and the base of her upswept hair with such fascination, has crossed a line to capture the moment when she shyly lifts her hair away from her neck with her hand as if exposed.” (p. 311).

Hammershøi died in 1915 and did not therefore further these interesting new artistic explorations.

(Please note that the painting that Vad analyses is no. 374 in Bramsen’s catalogue raisonné. Nos. 374 and 375 (the present painting) closely resemble each other in motif, composition and style, and no. 375 is also described as a preliminary work for no. 374. Both works are entitled Morgen-Toilette, and both are possibly incomplete – very sketchy at any rate – and so many of the deeply interesting considerations that Poul Vad makes about no. 374 in the catalogue also apply to the present painting.)

In “Vilhelm Hammershøi, på sporet af det åbne billede” (Vilhelm Hammershøi: On the Trail of the Open Picture), Rosenvold Hvidt and Oelsner describe this very motif – the woman with her back turned towards us, which is so characteristic of Hammershøi – and they describe the motif’s close connection to the photography of his day, which fascinated Hammershøi and which he made significant use of in his works and as part of the artistic process.

“Like the photographers Félex Nadar (1820–1910), Onésipe Aguado de las Marismas (1830–1893) and many other visual artists of his day, Hammershøi was interested in motifs depicting necks and figures with their backs turned. The motifs often have an enigmatic quality to them because we can get so close without being able to see the figure’s face. And apparently without the figure seeing us. Neck motifs are particularly desire-oriented in a photograph because they involve the awareness of the photographer who can take the picture while the model cannot see what is going on. Hammershøi transfers this intense photographic situation to his painting...” [...] “The neck is said to be the unconscious of the face, but in a way, pictures like these decline any psychoanalytical interpretation. They exist in a crossfield between reality and artificiality. The artificiality exists throughout the constructed staging: it is clear that the artists have decided how the models should pose and turn their backs. These are not random snapshots, but still, as beholders, we often go along with the idea because it is seductive and exciting to look at the subject from this angle.” (p. 144).

In this work, the intimate relationship between painter/beholder and model is emphasised by the fact that we are witnessing something as private as a woman’s morning toilette.