Susanne Meyer-Abich, A Catalogue Raisonné of Vilhelm Hammershøi's Works in “Vilhelm Hammershøi: Das Malerische Werk", 1995, no. 51.

Annette Rosenvold Hvidt and Gertrud Oelsner, “Vilhelm Hammershøi, på sporet af det åbne billede”, 2018, alphabetical list and chronological list of works, p. 559 and p. 562.

Literature: Annette Rosenvold Hvidt and Gertrud Oelsner, “Vilhelm Hammershøi, på sporet af det åbne billede”, 2018, mentioned p. 174 and ill. p. 175. Camilla Klitgaard Laursen, “Som et suk i natten. Vilhelm Hammershøis mørke mesterværk”, in Periskop no. 25, 2021, pp. 120–137, discussed pp. 130–131 and ill. p. 131.

Provenance: Bruun Rasmussen auction 801, 2009 no. 108. Collection of the artist Peter Brandes.

The painting has until recently been deposited at the Hirschsprung Collection.

Between 1885 and 1890, Vilhelm Hammershøi painted four figure compositions which, according to art historian Poul Vad, are key works in his early oeuvre and essential to understanding his artistic development.

As Vad writes in “Hammershøi. Værk og liv” (1988), Hammershøi repeatedly confronted the same pictorial challenge in these works – a seated figure, almost life-sized – yet each time approached it with a new motif and a distinct artistic intent. Each painting represents a significant artistic undertaking and an attempt to push the boundaries of his artistic capabilities. (p. 33).

The four works include his debut painting Portrait of a Young Girl (1885, The Hirschsprung Collection), Job (1887, The Hirschsprung Collection), Female Nude (1889, The National Gallery of Denmark, Inv. No. KMS3766), and Portrait of a Young Girl (Ida Ilsted) (1890, The National Gallery of Denmark, Inv. No. KMS8578).

The painting Job from 1887 – for which this oil study is a preparatory work – is today in the collection of the Hirschsprung Collection. Already at its first public showing in 1888, the work was criticised for its darkness, and over time, the figure has become almost completely obscured. This oil study, along with a drawing in private collection, now stands as one of the most important surviving testaments to the original painting.

The study depicts a nude man sitting upright on what appears to be a bed or a stone surface in a bare, darkened room. The figure is slightly rotated in relation to the picture plane. His right arm is raised at a right angle, with hand and fingers extended directly forward. The left arm follows the line of the torso and continues down along the thigh. A shadow casts the abdomen and groin area into deep darkness. Unlike the final painting, light enters from the right, illuminating the left side of the face while the right side recedes into shadow. The simple composition, the dark background, and the muted palette create an atmosphere of introspective pain and stoic calm.

“Vilhelm never intended it to be a biblical painting; but as it needed a title for the catalogue, he chose the name ‘Job’ as the best designation for a suffering human being.” — Frederikke Hammershøi (1838–1914)

So wrote the artist’s mother in her scrapbook, in which she meticulously documented her son’s artistic career from his debut in 1885 until her death in 1914. Her remark makes it clear that Hammershøi was not attempting to depict the biblical figure of Job, but rather to express a universal human suffering – conveyed through form, space, surface and light.

Job stands as one of the most enigmatic and radical works in Danish art history – or as the art historian Karl Madsen (1855–1938) put it (in Danish): “The strangest painting ever created in our proper little country.”