For examination, please contact the staff in Lyngby.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. AII 13 and AII 14).

The Norwegian painter Wilhelm Wetlesen began his artistic studies in Oslo in 1888. After a year, in 1889, he traveled to Copenhagen, where he enrolled at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. But his studies at the academy did not last long as he in 1890, he became a student at the Danish painter Kristian Zahrtmann's (1843–1917) art school. Wetlesen studied under Zahrtmann with breaks from 1890 to 1894, and Zahrtmann was not only his mentor but also became a close friend over time. It was with Zahrtmann that Wetlesen traveled to Italy; he went on a total of three study trips there between 1895 and 1900, during which he lived in Florence and Rome for longer periods of time. In the two portraits presented here, we see his compatriot Vilhelm Lundström (1869–1940) and the Norwegian Alf Torp (1853–1916) - both executed in 1899, when Wetlesen was in Rome.