Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by the current owner's great- grandfather and thence by descent in the family.

In a Danish context, Astrid Holm is a key participant in the modernist breakthrough. She first studied engineering but interrupted her studies in favour of Emilie Mundt and Marie Lublau's Art School and later the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, from which she graduated in 1909. She was subsequently one of the first Danes to travel to Paris, where she stayed for a longer period from 1909–1914. Here she became part of the highly regarded international art scene and – as the only Dane – a student of Henri Matisse.

Back in Denmark, she was seen as an energetic and innovative cosmopolitan artist who, until her death was deeply committed to improving educational and exhibition opportunities for female artists while engaging in social issues. In 1916, she established her own art school, and in 1921, she became the first female teacher at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, as the leader of a newly established weaving school.

Holm brings Matisse's fauvism and Cezanne's cubism with her home from France, which was expressed in her landscapes, interiors and still lifes that were exhibited at Den Frie Exhibition in 1913 and in 1915 with fellow artist Jais Nielsen. The critics were initially positive about the works, including Johannes Hohlenberg who wrote in Berlingske Tidende in 1915: “The two Artists' paintings suit each other. Miss Holm, whose flower paintings many will still remember from an exhibition two years ago, has since then been travelling and painting some powerful and colourful paintings from tropical regions. They show the same abilities as seen in the flower paintings: a distinct sense of the arrangement and of the colour composition.”

Precisely this sense of the image's structure and colour is also fundamental to the two beautiful works we can present at the auction here. Holm's sense of colour, materiality and texture is absolutely pervasive: from the heavily draped fabric in the background to the alluring freshness of the fruit.

The work of Astrid Holm was most recently shown at the exhibition “Astrid Holm & Co” at Øregaard Museum, 2019–2020 and at Rønnebæksholm, 2020.